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ORIGINS 



O F 



CHRISTIANITY. 



IN PREPARATION. 

UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME AND BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

THE LIVES OF THE APOSTLES. 



THE 



LIFE OF JESUS 



BY 

ERNEST RENAN 

MEMBRE DE L'INSTITUT. 



TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH BY 
CHARLES EDWIN WILBOUR 

TKANSLATOU OF LES MISEBABLBS. 



JSTEW-YOKR: 

CARLETOJsr, PUBLISHER, 413 BROADWAY. 
PARIS: MICHEL LEVY FREBES. 

M DCCO LXIV. 



x^k-A 



Entered . according to Act of Congress, in the year iFAi, 

By GEO. W . CARLETON, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York, 






TO THE PURE SPIRIT 



OF MY SISTER HENRIETTE, 



WHO DIED AT BYBLUS. SEPTEMBER 24tH, 1861. 



Do you remember, from your rest in the 
bosom of God, those long days at G-hazir, where, 
alone with you, I wrote these pages, inspired by 
the scenes we had just traversed ? Silent by my 
side, you read every leaf, and copied it as soon 
as written, while the sea, the villages, the 
ravines, the mountains, were spread out at 
our feet. When the overwhelming light of the 
sun had given place to the innumerable army 
of the stars, your iSne and delicate questions, 
your discreet doubts, brought me back to the 
subHme object of our common thoughts. One 



VI DEDICATION. 

day you told me that you should love this book, 
first, because it had been written with you, and 
also because it pleased you. If sometimes you 
feared for it the narrow judgments of the frivo- 
ious man, you were always persuaded that spirits 
truly religious would be pleased with it. In the 
midst of these sweet meditations Death struck us 
both with his wing ; the sleep of fever seized us 
both at the same hour ; I awoke alone ! . . . You 
sleep now in the land of Adonis, near the holy 
Byblus and the sacred waters where the women 
of the ancient mysteries came to mingle their 
tears. Reveal to me, my good genius, to me 
whom you loved, those truths which master 
Death, prevent us from fearing, and make us 
almost love it. 



CONTENTS, 



* ♦ 



Dedication 



PAGE 

5 



Introduction ^ 

CHAPTER I. 
Place of Jesus in the world's history 51 

CHAPTER II. 
Childhood and youth of Jesus —his first impressions 65 

CHAPTER III. 
Education of Jesus ^ 72 

CHAPTER IV. 
Order of ideas amid which Jesus was developed , 82 

CHAPTER V. 
First aphorisms of Jesus.— His ideas of a father God and a 

pure religion. — First discipJes 101 

CHAPTER VI. 
John the Baptist. — Journey of Jesus to John and his sojourn 

in the desert of Judea. — Adopts the baptism of John .... 117 

CHAPTER VIT. 
Development of the ideas of Jesus concerning the kingdom of 

God 430 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Jesus at Capernaum *i42 

CHAPTER IX. 
The disciples of Jesus 155 

CHAPTER X. 
The sermons by the sea 166 

CHAPTER XI. 

The kingdom of God conceived as the advent of the poor .... 170 



Vm CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XII. 
Embassy of Jolinfrom prison to Jesus.— Death of John.— Rela- 
tions of Ms school with tliat of Jesus 188 

CHAPTER XIII. 
First attempts upon Jerusalem 195 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Relations of Jesus with the Pagans and the Samaritans 208 

CHAPTER XV. 
Commencement of the legend of Jesus— his own idea of his 

supernatural mission 216 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Miracles 229 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Definite form of the ideas of Jesus on the kingdom of Grod 240 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

The institutions of Jesus 254 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Increasing progression of enthusiasm and exaltation 266 

CHAPTER XX. 

Opposition to Jesus 276 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Last journey of Jesus to Jerusalem 287 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Machinations of the enemies of Jesus 301 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

The last week of Jesus 'JIS 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
Arrest and trial of Jesus 327 

CHAPTER XXV. 
The death of Jesus 343 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
JeBiis at the tomb 352 

CHAPTER XXVII. 
Fate of the enemies of Jesus 368 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 
Essential character of the work of Jesus 363 



INTRODUCTION. 



WHICH TREATS PRINCIPALLY OF THE SOURCES 
OP THIS HISTORY. 



A HISTORY of the " Origins of Christianity " would 
embrace the obscure and, if I may use the word, sub- 
terranean period which extends from the first begin- 
nings of this religion to the time when its existence 
becomes a public, well-known fact, evident to the eyes 
of all men. Such a history would consist of four 
books. The first, which I now present to the pub- 
lic, treats of the event itself which served as the start- 
ing-point of the new worship ; it is entirely filled by 
the sublime person of the founder. The second would 
treat of the apostles and their immediate disciples, or 
rather of the revolutions in religious thought of the 
first two Christian generations. I would close it about 
the year 100, when the last friends of Jesus have died, 
and all the books of the New Testament have become 
fixed very nearly in the form in which we read them. 
The third v/ould set forth the condition of Christianity 
under the Antonines, slowly developing, and main- 
taining an almost permanent war against the empire, 
which having now reached the highest degree of ad- 
ministrative perfection and being governed by philo- 
sophers, combats in the infant sect a society secret and 

I* 



10 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

theocratic, that denies it obstinately and undermines 
it incessantly. This book would comprise the whole 
of the second century. Finally, the fourth book would 
show the decisive progress of Christianity from the 
time of the Syrian emperors. In it the wise construc- 
tion of the Antonines would be seen falling in pieces, 
the decay of the ancient civilization becoming irrevo- 
cable, Christianity profiting by its ruin, Syria conquer- 
ing the whole West, and Jesus, in company wdth the 
gods and divinized sages of Asia, taking possession of a 
society to w^hich philosophy and a purely civil govern- 
ment no longer suffice. Then it is that the religious 
ideas of the races grouped about the Mediterranean are 
radically modified, oriental religions everywhere as- 
sume the ascendancy, Christianity, having become a 
mighty church, entirely forgets its millennial dreams, 
breaks its last connection with Judaism, and passes en- 
tirely into the Greek and Latin world. The literary 
struggles and labors of the third century, already pub- 
lic matters, would be set forth only in general terms. 
I should relate still more briefly the persecutions of 
the commencement of the fourth century, the last ef- 
fort of the empire to return to its old principles, 
which denied religious association any place in the 
State. In conclusion, I should merely foreshadow the 
change of policy which, under Constantino, inverted 
conditions, and made of the freest and most sponta- 
neous religious movement, an official religion, sub- 
jected to the State and persecuting in its turn. 

1 know not that I shall have enough of life and ability 
to complete a plan so vast. I shall be satisfied if, after 
having written the life of Jesus, it is given to me to 
relate, as I understand it, the history of the apostles, 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

the condition of the Christian consciousness during 
the weeks which followed the death of Jesus, the form- 
ation of the legendary cycle of the resurrection, the 
first acts of the church of Jerusalem, the life of St. 
Paul, the crisis of the time of JSTero, the vision of the 
Apocalypse, the fall of Jerusalem, the foundation of 
the Hebraic christianisms of Batanea, the compilation 
of the gospels, the origin of the great schools of Asia 
Minor, sprung from John. Every thing pales beside 
this marvellous first century. By a singularity rare in 
history, we see much more clearly what passed in the 
Christian world from the year 50 to the year 75, than 
from the year 100 to the year 150. 

The plan followed in this history has prevented the 
introduction into the text of long critical dissertations 
on controverted points. A continuous system of notes 
gives the reader the means of verifying by their sour- 
ces all the propositions of the text. In these notes, I 
have strictly confined myself to citations from first 
hand, I mean to the indication of the original passages 
upon which each assertion or each conjecture rests. I 
know that to persons little acquainted with these stu- 
dies, many other developments would have been ne- 
cessary. But I am unaccustomed to doing over again 
what has been done and well done. To cite only books 
written in French, those who will procure the follow- 
ing works : 

Etudes critiques sur VEvangile de saint Maithicu, par M. Albert 
Reville, pasteur de I'eglise wallonne de Rotterdam.* 

Hisioire de la thMogie chrHienne au si^cle apostolique, par M. Reuss, 



* Leyden, Noothoven van Goor, 18ti2. Paris, Cherbuliez. A book crowned 
by the Society of the Hague for the defense of the Christian religion. 



12 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

professeur a la Faculte de theologie et an seminaire protestant de 
Strasbourg.* 

Des Doctrines Eeligieuses des Juifs pendant les deux siecles anterieurs 
a Vhe Chreiiennc, par M, Michel Nicolas, professeur a la Faculte de 
theologie protestante de Montauban.t 

Vie de Jdsus, par le Dr. Strauss, traduite par M. Littre, membre de 
riustitut.f 

Revue de theologie et de philosopkie chrHienne, publiee sous la direc- 
tion de M. Colani, de 1850 a 1857 .—Nouvelle Eevue de theologie, faisant 
suite a la precedente, depuis 1858.§ 

— those, I saj, wlio will consult these excellent works, || 
will find in them the explanation of a multitude of 
points upon which I have been compelled to be very 
succinct. The criticism ia detail of the texts of the 
gospels, in particular, has been done by M. Strauss 
in a manner which leaves little to be desired. Al- 
though M. Strauss is mistaken in his theory of the 
compilation of the gospels,T and his book has, as I 
think, the fault of looking too much from the theolog- 
ical and too little from the historical point of view,"^"^ 
it is indispensable, in order to understand the motives 
which have guided me in a great number of details, 



* Strasbourg, Treuttel et Wurtz. 2e edition, 1860. Paris, Cherbullez. 

t Paris, Michel Levy freres, 1860. 

t Paris, Ladrange, 2e edition, 1856. 

^ Strasbourg, Treuttel et Wurtz. Paris, Cherbuliez. 

I While these pages are being printed, a book has appeared which I do not 
hesitate to add to the preceding, although I have not been able to read it with 
the attention which it deserves : Les Evangiles, par M. Gustave d'Eichthal. Pre- 
miere partie : Ezanun critique et comparatif des trois premiers evangiles. Paris, 
Hachette,1863. , ', . 

If The great results obtained on this point were not reached until after the 
first edition of M. Strauss's work. The learned critic, has, however, done jus- 
tice to them in his succeeding editions with much frankness. 

** It is hardly necessary to say tliat there is not a word in M. Strauss"s book to 
justify the strange and absurd calumny by which an attempt has been made 
to discredit among superficial people, a proper, exact, acute and conscientious 
book, though spoiled in its general portions by an exclusive system. Not only 
has M. Strauss uever denied the existence of Jesus, but every page of his book 
implies this existence. The truth is that M. Strauss supposes that the individual 
character of Jetsus is more obscured to ns than perhaps it really is. 



INTRODUCTION. 1 3 

to follow the discussions, always judicious thongli 
sometimes rather subtle, of the book so well transla- 
ted by my learned brother, M. Littre. 

I believe that I have neglected, among ancient au- 
thorities, no source of information. Five great collec- 
tions of writings, not to speak of a multitude of other 
scattered data, remain to us in regard to Jesus and the 
time in which he lived : first, the gospels and the 
writings of the 'New Testament generally ; second, 
the compositions called the " Apocrypha of the Old 
Testament ;" third, the works of Philo ; fourth, those 
of Josephus ; fifth, the Talmud. The writings of 
Philo have the inestimable advantage of showing us 
what thoughts were fermenting in the time of Jesus 
in souls occupied with great religious questions. 
Philo lived, it is true, in quite another province of 
Judaism, but like Jesus he was very free from the 
littlenesses which reigned at Jerusalem ; Philo is truly 
the elder brother of Jesus. He was sixty-two years 
old when the prophet of Nazareth was at the highest 
degree of his activity, and he survived him at least ten 
years. What a misfortune that the chances of life 
did not lead him into Galilee ! What would he not 
have taught us ! 

Josephus, writing principally for the pagans, has 
not the same sincerity in his style. His brief noti- 
ces of Jesus, John the Baptist, and Judas the Gaulon- 
ite, are dry and colorless. We feel that he is seek- 
ing to present these movements so thoroughly Jew- 
ish in character and spirit, under a form which may 
be intelligible to the Greeks and Komans. I think 
the passage on Jesus authentic* It is perfectly in the 

* ^n/., XVIII, III, 3. 



14 ORIGINS OF CHKISTIANITY. 

style of Joseplius, and if this historian had made men- 
tion of Jesus, it would have been in that way. We 
perceive only that some Christian hand has retouched 
the fragment, has added a few words without which 
it would have been almost blasphemous,* and has per- 
haps curtailed or modified some expressions.! We 
must remember that the literary fortune of Josephus 
was made by the Christians, who adopted his writings 
as documents essential to their sacred history. There 
was put out, probably in the second century, an edi- 
tion corrected according to the Christian ideas.:!: But 
at all events, what constitutes the great interest of 
Josephus for the subject before us, is the vivid light 
which he throws upon the period. Thanks to him, 
Herod, Herodias, Antipater, Philip, Annas, Caiaphas, 
and Pilate are persons upon whom we put our finger, 
and whom we see living before us with striking real- 
ity. 

The Apocrypha of the Old Testament, especially the 
Jewish portion of the Sjbilline verses, and the Book 
of Enoch, taken with the Book of Daniel, which also 
is really apocryphal, are of cardinal importance for the 
history of the development of the Messianic theories, 
and for the understanding of the conceptions of Jesus 
in regard to the kingdom of God. The Book of Enoch, 
in particular, which was very much read in the region 
of Jesus, II gives the key to the expression " Son of 

* <* If it be lawful to call him a man." 

t Instead of ^^^jtfr^^ ouTO^ ^v it was certainly p^^jtfrdj ouro^ iXiySTO. 
Cf. ^ni,XX,ix,l. 

t Eusebius {Hist, eccl., I, U, and Demonst. evang., Ill, 5,) quotes the passage on 
Jesus as we now read it in Josephus. Origen (Contra Cels., I, 47; II, 13,) and 
Eusebius (Hist, eccl., II, 23,) quote another Christian interpolation, which la 
found in none of the manuscripts of Josephus that ha^'e reached us. 

II Judse Epist. , 14. 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

man," 'and the ideas wMcti were associated with it. 
The age of these different books, thanks to the labors 
of Messrs. Alexandre, Ewald, Dillmann, and Eeiiss, 
is now fixed beyond donbt. All now agree in placing 
the compilation of the more important of them in the 
second and first centuries before Christ. The date of 
the Book of Daniel is still more certain. The character 
of the two languages in which it is written ; the use of 
Greek words ; the clear announcement, determinate 
and dated, of events as late as the time of Antiochus 
Epiphanes ; the false images of ancient Babylon traced 
in it ; the general coloring of the book, which reminds 
us in no wise of the writings of the captivity, which 
corresponds on the contrary, by a multitude of analo- 
gies, with the beliefs, the manners, and the peculiar 
fancies of the time of the Seleucidae ; the apocalyptic 
character of the visions ; the place of the book in the 
Hebrew canon after the series of the prophets; the 
omission of Daniel, in the panegyrics of the xxix.^^ chap- 
ter of Ecclesiasticus, in which his rank was, as it were, 
indicated ; many other evidences which have been de- 
duced a hundred times, leave no doubt that the Book 
of Daniel was the fruit of the great exaltation produced 
among the Jews by the persecution of Antiochus. 
Not in the old prophetic literature must this book be 
classed, but rather at the head of the apocalyptic liter- 
ature, as the first model of a style of composition in 
which were to take their places after it, the various 
sibylline poems, the Book of Enoch, the Apocalypse 
of John, the Ascension of Isaiah, and the fourth book 
of Esdras. 

In the history of the origins of Christianity, the Talmud 
has hitherto been far too much neglected. I think, with 



16 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

M. Geiger, that the true idea of the circumstances amid 
which Jesus was brought forth, must be sought in this 
strange compilation, where so much precious informa- 
tion is mingled with the most insignificant scholasti- 
cism. Christian theology and Jewish theology having 
really followed two parallel paths, the history of either 
cannot be well understood without the history of the 
other. ]N'umberless material details of the gospels 
find, moreover, their commentary in the Talmud. The 
vast Latin collections of Lightfoot, Schoettgen, Bux- 
torf, and Otho, contain a mass of such information. I 
have made it a rule to verify in the original every 
quotation which I have made, without a single excep- 
tion. The aid which has been rendered me in this 
portion of my labor, by a learned Israelite, M. Neu- 
bauer, who is exceedingly well versed in Talmudic lit- 
erature, has enabled me to go still further, and to clear 
up the most delicate portions of my subject by some 
new comparisons. The distinction of epochs is here 
very important, the compilation of the Talmud extend- 
ing from the year 200 to the year 500, nearly. W"e 
have brought to this as much discrimination as is pos- 
sible in the present condition of these studies. Dates 
so recent will excite some fears among persons accus- 
tomed to accord value to a document only for the pe- 
riod at which it was written. But such scruples would 
here be out of place. The teaching of the Jews from 
the Asmonean epoch to the second century, was prin- 
cipally oral. We must not judge such intellectual 
conditions after the habitudes of a time in which much 
is written. The Yedas, the ancient Arab poems, were 
preserved by memory for centuries, and yet these 
compositions present a very definite and very delicate 



INTRODUCTION. » 17 

form. In tlie Talmud on the contrary, the form is ot 
no account. "We must add, that before the Misohna 
of Judah the Holy, which superseded all the rest, there 
were attempts at compilation, the first of which date 
back perhaps further than is commonly supposed. The 
style of the Talmud is that of running notes ; the com- 
pilers probably did nothing more than to class under cer- 
tain titles this enormous mass of rubbish which had been 
accumulating in the different schools for generations. 

"We have yet to speak of the documents which, be- 
ing presented as biographies of the founder of Chris- 
tianity, must of course hold the first place in a life of 
Jesus. A complete treatise on the compilation of the 
gospels would be a volume of itself. Thanks to the 
thorough studies of which this question has been the 
subject for thirty years, a problem that would formerly 
have been deemed impossible, has reached a solution 
which leaves room for much uncertainty, but which is 
amply sufficient for the demands of history. We shall 
have occasion to return to this in our second book, 
the composition of the gospels having been one of the 
most important events to the future of Christianity 
which occurred during the second half of the first cen- 
tury. We shall here touch but a single phase of the 
subject, that which is indispensable to the substantia- 
tion of our narrative. Leaving aside all that belongs 
to the description of the apostolic times, we shall in- 
quire only to what extent the data furnished by the 
gospels may be employed in a history projected upon 
rational principles.* 

Let the gospels be in part legendary, that is evident 
since they are full of miracles and the supernatural ; 

• Those who wish more ample developments may consult besides the work 



18 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

but there are different species of legends. !N'obody 
doubts the principal traits of the life of Francis d' As- 
sisi, though in it the supernatural is met at every step. 
Nobody, on the contrary, gives credence to the " Life of 
Apollonius of Tyana," because it was written long after 
its hero, and under the conditions of a pure romance. At 
what period, by what hands, under what conditions 
were the gospels compiled ? This is the capital ques- 
tion upon which depends the opinion that we must 
form of their credibility. 

We know that each of the four gospels bears at its 
head the name of a person known either in the apos- 
tolic history or in the gospel history itself. These four 
persons are not presented to us strictly as authors. The 
formulae " according to Matthew," " according to 
Mark," " according to Luke," " according to John," 
do not imply that in the oldest opinion, these narratives 
had been written from one end to the other by Mat- 
thew, Mark, Luke, and John ; * they signify only that 
those were the traditions coming from each of these 
apostles, and covered by their authority. It is clear 
that if these titles are exact, the gospels, without ceas- 
ing to be in part legendary, assume a high value, since 
they carry us back to the half century following the 
death of Jesus, and even, in two cases, to eye-witnesses 
of his acts. 

As to Luke, in the first place, doubt is hardly possi- 
ble. Luke's gospel is a regular composition, founded 
on anterior documents.f It is the work of a man who 

of M. Reville already cited, the labors of Messrs. Reuss and Scherer in the Remte 
de theohgie, t. X, XI, XV, nouv. serie II. III. IV, and that of M, Nicolas in the 
Revue germanique, sept, et dec, 1862. avril et juin, 1863. 

* So " The Gospel according to the Hebrews," " The Gospel according to the 
Egyptians." f Luke, i, 1-4. 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

selects, prunes, combines. The author of this gospel 
is certainly the same as the author of the Acts of the 
Apostles.* JS^ow the author of the Acts is a compan- 
ion of St. Paul, f a title perfectly fitting to Luke.:j: I 
know that more than one objection may be interposed 
to this ; but one thing at least is beyond doubt, that 
the author of the third gospel and of the Acts, is a 
man of the second apostolic generation, and that is 
enough for our purpose. The date of this gospel may, 
moreover, be determined with much precision by con- 
siderations drawn from the book itself. Chapter xxi, 
inseparable from the rest of the work, was certainly 
written after the siege of Jerusalem, and soon after. | 
We are here, therefore, on firm ground ; for we have a 
work written entirely by the same hand, and of the 
most perfect unity. 

The gospels of Matthew and Mark are far from hav- 
ing the same individual seal. They are impersonal 
compositions, in which tlie author totally disappears. 
A proper name written at the head of such works does 
not mean much. But if the gospel of Luke is dated, 
those of Matthew and Mark are also ; for it is certain 
that the third gospel is posterior to the first, and pre- 
sents the character of a compilation much more ad- 
vanced. We have besides, in this respect, a most im- 
portant testimonigfof the first half of the second cen- 
tury. It is by Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, a man of 
weight, a man of tradition, who was all his life atten- 
tive to the collection of whatever could be learned of 

* Ads, 1, 1. Comp. Luke, i, 1-4. 

J From XVI, 10 ooward, the author speaks as an eye-witness. 
+ 2 Tim. , IV, 11; Philem., 24; Col . iv, 14. The name Lucas (a contraction of 
lAtcanm) being very rare, we need fear none of those homonymies which throw 
80 many perplexities over critical questions relative to the New Testament. 
11 Verses 9, 20, 24, 28, 32 Comp, xxii, 36. 



20 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the person of Jesus.* After declaring that in such a 
matter he prefers oral tradition to books, Papias 
mentions two written works on the words and deeds 
of Christ : first, a work of Mark, the interpreter of the 
apostle Peter, brief, incomplete, not arranged in chro- 
nological order, comprising narratives and sayings 
(\£;)^^s'vTa ri if^cvxpivTcC), composed from the accounts and 
reminiscences of the apostle Peter ; secondly, a col- 
lection of sayings (Xo'y'a) written in Hebrewf by Mat- 
thew, " and which^verybody has translated as best he 
could." Certain it is that these two descriptions cor- 
respond very well to the general physiognomy of the 
two books now called " The Gospel according to Mat- 
thew," and '' The Gospel according to Mark," the first 
characterized by its long discourses ; the second, full 
of anecdote, much more exact than the first in regard 
to minute acts, brief to dryness, poor in discom'ses and 
badly composed. That these two works as we read 
them are absolutely similar to those which Papias 
read, cannot be maintained ; in the first place, be- 
cause the work of Matthew to Papias was composed 
exclusively of discourses in Hebrew, of which transla- 
tions varying considerably were in circulation, and in 
the second place, because the work of Mark and that 
of Matthew were to him quite distinct, compiled 
without any concord, and, it seems, written in difi'er- 
ent languages. Now, in the present condition of the 
texts, the Gospel according to Matthew and the Gos- 
pel according to Mark present parallel passages so 



* In Eusebius, Hist. eccl. Ill, 3!^. No doubt whatever can be raised as to the 
authenticity of this passage . Eusebius, in fact, far from exaggerating the au- 
thority of Papias. is embarrassed by his simplicity, his crude millenarianism, 
and explains it by treating him as a small mind. Comp. Irenaeus, Adv. hcer. , III, i. 

t That is, in a Semitic dialect. 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

long and so perfectly identical that we must sup- 
pose, either that the final compiler of the first had 
the second before him, or that both have copied the 
same prototype. What appears most probable is 
that neither of Matthew nor of Mark have we the 
original compilations; that our two first gospels are 
already arrangements in which there has been an at- 
tempt to fill the hiatuses in one text by another. Each 
wished indeed to possess a complete copy. He who 
had only the discourses in his copy, desired to have the 
narratives, and vice versa. Thus " the Gospel accord- 
ing to Matthew" is found to have incorporated nearly 
all the anecdotes of Mark, and " the Gospel accor ling 
to Mark " now contains a multitude of traits which 
come from the Logia of Matthew. Each moreover 
drew largely from the evangelical traditions contin- 
uing about him. These traditions are so far from 
having been exhausted by the gospels, that the Acts 
of the Apostles and the most ancient Fathers quote 
many sayings of Jesus which appear authentic, and 
which are not found in the gospels that we possess. 

It is of small importance to our present object to 
carry this delicate analysis farther, and to endeavor to 
reconstruct in some manner, on the one hand, the ori- 
ginal Logia of Matthew ; on the other, the primitiv^e 
nairation as it flowed from the pen of Mark. The 
Logia are undoubtedly represented to us by the grand 
dis<Jourses of Jesus, wliich fill a considerable portion 
of the first gospel. These discourses form, indeed, 
wben detached from the rest, a tolerably complete 
whole. As to the narratives of the first and secotid 
gospels, they seem to be based upon a common docu- 
ment, the text of which is found sometimes in one and 



22 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

sometimes in the other, and of which the second gos- 
pel, as we now find it, is but a slightly modified repro- 
duction. In other words, the system of the life of Je- 
sus with the synoptics rests upon two original docu- 
ments : first, the discourses of Jesus collected by the 
apostle Matthew ; second, the collection of anecdotes 
and personal information which Mark wrote from Pe- 
ter's reminiscences. We may say that we now have 
these two documents, mingled with matter from other 
sources, in the two first gospels, which bear not wrong- 
fully the name of " Gospel according to Matthew," 
and " Gospel according to Mark." 

There can be no doubt, at all events, that at a very 
early day the discourses of Jesus were reduced to wri- 
ting in the Aramaean language, and that at an early 
day also his remarkable deeds were recorded. These 
were not texts settled and fixed dogmatically. Besides 
the gospels which have reached us, there were a mul- 
titude of others professing to represent the traditions 
of eye-witnesses."^ Little importance was attached to 
these writings, and the collectors, like Papias, much 
preferred oral tradition.f As they believed the world 
near its end, they cared little to compose books for 
the future ; it was important only to preserve in 
their hearts the living image of him whom they 
hoped soon to see again in the clouds. Hence the 
little authority which the evangelical texts possessed 
for a hundred and fifty years. There was no scrupl 
about inserting additions, combining them diversely, 
or completing some by others. The poor man who 



» Luke .1,1,2; Origen ; Bmn. in Lac. I , init. ; St. Jerome, Comment, in Mai. , prol . 
i Papias. in Eusebius, H. E., Ill, 39. Comp. Irenaeus, Adv. h(Br.,Ill, n et iii 



INTRODUeTION. 23 

has but one book, desires it to contain all that speaks 
to his heart. They lent these little rolls to one ano- 
ther : each transcribed on the margin of his copy the 
sayings and the parables which he found elsewhere, 
and which touched him.* The finest thing in the 
world thus resulted from an obscure and entirely pop- 
ular elaboration. I^o compilation had absolute value. 
Justin, who often appeals to what he calls " the me- 
moirs of the apostles,"f had before him a condition of 
the evangelical documents considerably differing from 
that which we have ; at all events, he takes no care 
to cite them textually. The gospel quotations in the 
pseudo-Clementine writings of Ebionite origin, present 
the same character. The spirit was everything ; the 
letter nothing. It was when tradition grew weak in 
the latter half of the second century that the texts 
bearing the names of the apostles assumed decisive 
authority and obtained the force of law. 

"Who does not see the preciousness of documents 
thus composed of the tender memories, of the simple 
recitals of the two first Christian generations, yet filled 
with the strong impression which the founder had 
made, and which seems, long to have survived him? 
These gospels too, appear to come through that branch 
of the Christian family which was most closely allied 
to Jesus. The last labor of compilation, at least of the 
text which bears the name of Matthew, appears to 
have been done in one of the countries situated to the 
north-east of Palestine, such as Gaulonitis, Haouran 



* Thus the beautiful story John, viii, 1-11, has floated continually without 
finding its fixed place in the framework of the received gospels. 

t To. d'TOju.vTiixovSjjxaT'a twv ct'jr'ofl'ToXwv, a xaksTrai svayyiXia, 
Justin, Apol., I, 33, 66, 67; Dial, cum Tryph ,10, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107 



24 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

or Batanea, where many Christians took refuge during 
the Roraan war, where the relatives of Jesus were 
still found in the second centurj,* and where the first 
Galilean direction was preserved longer than any- 
where else. 

Hitherto we have spoken only of the three gospels 
called synoptic. We have now to speak of the fourth, 
that which bears the name of John. Here is much 
more ground for doubts, and the question is less near 
a solution. Papias, who belonged to the school of 
John, and who, if he had not heard him, as Irenseus 
will have it, had attended much upon his immediate 
disciples, among others Aristion, and he who was 
called Preshyteros Jocmnes^ Papias, who had eagerly 
collected the oral narrations of this Aristion and 
Preshyteros Joannes^ says not a word of a " Life of 
Jesus" written by John. Had any such mention been 
found in his work, Eusebius, who extracts from him 
all that is of value for the literary history of the 
apostolic century, would undoubtedly have remarked 
it. The intrinsic difficulties drawn from the read- 
ing of the fourth gospel itself are equally great. 
How is it that by the side of definite details, which 
savor so strongly of an eye-witness, we find such dis- 
courses, totally difi'erent from those of Matthew ? 
How, by the side of a general plan of a life of Je- 
sus, which appears much more satisfactory and exact 
than that of the synoptics, these singular passages in 
which we perceive a dogmatic interest peculiar to the 
compiler, ideas entirely foreign to Jesus, and sometimes 
indications which put us on our guard as to the good 

♦ Julius Africanus, in Eusebius, BM. eccl, 1, 7. 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

faith of the narrator? How, in short, by the side of 
the purest, the most just, the most truly evangelical 
views, these spots in which we would fain see the in- 
terpolations of an ardent sectary ? Is it indeed John, 
the son of Zebedee, the brother of James, (of whom 
no single mention is made in the fourth gospel), who 
was able to write in Greek these lessons of abstract 
metaphysics to which neither the synoptics nor the 
Talmud present any analogy ? All this is weighty, 
and, for my part, I dare not be certain that the fourth 
gospel was written entirely by the pen of an ex-fisher- 
man of Galilee. But that in substance this gospel is- 
sued towards the end of the first century, from the 
great school of Asia Minor, which held to John, that 
it presents to us a version of the Master's life, worthy 
of high consideration and often of preference, is de- 
monstrated, both by external evidence and by the ex- 
amination of the document itself, in a manner that 
leaves nothing to be desired. 

And first, there is no doubt that towards the year 150 
the fourth gospel was in existence and was attributed to 
John. Formal texts of St. Justin,* Athenagoras,f Ta- 
tian,:j: Theophilus of Antioch,|| and Iren2eus,§ show that 
from that time this gospel was used in all controversies, 
and served as the corner-stone for the development ol 
the doctrine. Irenseus is formal ; now, Irenseus is of the 
school of John, and between him and the apostle there 
was only Polycarp. The part of this gospel in gnost- 
icism, and particularly in the system of Yalentine,T in 



* Apol. , I, 32, 61; Dial, cum Tryph., 88. f Legatiopro Christ., 10. 

iAdv. GroK. , 5, 7. Cf. Eusebius, H. E., IV, 29; Theodoret, Hosretic. fahul 1, 20. 
AdAutolycum, II, 22. § ^du. Ticer. , II , xxu , 5 ; III, i, Cf. Eus. , H. ^. , V. 8. 
Irenseiis, Adv. har., I, iii 6; III, xi, 7; St. Hippolytus, Fhilosophvmena, VI, 
II, 29 seqq. 

2 



26 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Montanism* and in tlie contest of the Quartodecima- 
ni,f is no less decisive. The school of John is that 
the course of which is most clearly seen during the 
second century ; now, this school cannot be under- 
stood if we do not place the fourth gospel:j: at its very 
cradle. The first epistle also, attributed to St. John, 
is certainly by the same author as the fourth gospel ; 
now the epistle is identified as John's by Poly carp, || 
Papias§ and Irenseus-T 

But above all the book itself is of an impressive 
character. The author speaks continually as an eye- 
witness ; he desires to pass for the apostle John. If, 
therefore, this work is not really by the apostle, we 
must admit a deception which the author confesses to 
himself. Now, although the ideas of that day were, 
in matters of literary honesty, essentially diff'erent from 
ours, we have no example in the apostolic world, of a 
forgery of this kind. Moreover, not only does the au- 
thor desire to pass for the apostle John, but we see 
clearly that he writes in the interest of that apostle. 
On every page the intention is betrayed of showing 
that he was the favorite of Jesus,** that upon all the 
most solemn occasions (at the Supper, on Calvary, at 
the grave) he held the first place. The relations, fra- 
ternal on the whole, though not excluding a certain 
rivalry, of the author with Peter, ff his hatred on the 
contrary to Judas,:j::j: a hatred perhaps anterior to the 
betrayal, seem to disclose themselves here and there. 



* Irenaeus, Adv. ^<7;r., Ill, xi, 9. f Eusebius, H. E.,Y, 24. 

X 1 John, 1,3,5. The two works present the most complete identity of style, 
the same peculiarities, the same favorite expressions. 

II Epist. ad Philip., 7- ^ In Eusebius, H. E., Ill, 39. 

f Ado. hoer.,111, xvi, 5, 8. Cf Eusebius, H. E., V, 8. 
** xiri, 23; xix, 26; xx. 2, xxi, 7, 20. 
It John, XVIII, 15, 16; xx, 2-6; xxi, 15-19. Xt ^ij 65; xii, 6; xiii,21 seqq. 



INTRODUCTION, 27 

We are tempted to believe that John, in his old age, 
having read the evangelical narrations which were in 
circulation, remarked, on the one hand, various inac- 
curacies,*^ on the other hand, was wounded at seeing 
that there had not been accorded to him a sufficiently 
prominent place in the history of Christ ; that then he 
began to dictate many things which he knew better 
than the rest, with the intention of showing that in a 
great number of cases in which mention had been 
made of Peter only, he had figured with and before 
him.f Already in the lifetime of Jesus, this slight 
feeling of jealousy had betrayed itself between the 
sons of Zebedee and the other disciples. :|: Since the 
death of James, his brother, John was the sole pos- 
sessor of the affectionate memories of which these two 
disciples, by the confession of all, were the deposita- 
ries. Hence his perpetual care to keep in mind that he 
is the last surviving eye-witness, || and the pleasure that 
he takes in relating circumstances with which he alone 
could be acquainted. Hence so many little traits of 
precision which seem like the scholia of an annotator : 
" It was the sixth hour ;" " it was night ;" " the ser- 
vant's name was Malchus ;" " they had made a fire of 
coals, fbr it was cold ;" " now the coat was without 
seam." Hence, finally, the disorder of the compila- 
tion, the irregularity of the progress, the disconnec- 
tion of the first chapters ; so many things inexplicable 
on the supposition that this gospel is only a theologi- 

* The manner in which Aristion or Presfyyteros Joannes expressed himself on the 
Gospel of Mark before Papias (Eusebiu&, H. K, III, 39,) implies, indeed, a kind 
criticism, or rather a sort of excuse, which seems to suppose that John's disci- 
ples had some better conception of the same subject. 

t Com. John, xviii, 15 seqq., with Matt, xxvi, 58; John, xx,2-6, with Mark, 
XVI, 7. See also John, XIII, 24, 25. 

X See hereafter, p. 162. 

1 1, 14; XIX, 35; XXI, 24 seqq. Comp. the first epistle of St. John, i, 3, 5. 



28 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

cal thesis without historical value, and which, on the 
contrary, are perfectly comprehensible, if we see in 
them, according to the tradition, the memories of an 
old man, sometimes of marvellous freshness, sometimes 
having suffered strange mutations. 

A capital distinction, indeed, must be made in the 
gospel of John. On the one hand, this gospel presents 
to us a picture of the life of Jesus which differs con- 
siderably from that of the synoptics. On the other, 
he puts into the mouth of Jesus discourses, the tone, 
the style, the manner, the doctrines of which have no- 
thing in common with the Logia reported by the sy- 
noptics. Under this second relation the difference is 
so great that we must make a decided choice. If 
Jesus spoke as Matthew has it, he could not have spo- 
ken as John has it. Between the two authorities, no 
critic has hesitated, none will hesitate. A thousand 
miles from the simple, disinterested, impersonal tone 
of the synoptics, the gospel of John discovers continu- 
ally the preoccupations of the apologist, the after- 
thoughts of the sectary, the intention of proving a the- 
sis and of convincing adversaries.* ITot by preten- 
tious, heavy, badly-written tirades, saying little to the 
moral sense, did Jesus found his divine work. Even 
if Papias had not told us that Matthew wrote the say- 
ings of Jesus in their original tongue, the naturalness, 
the ineffable truth, the peerless charm of the synoptic 
discourses, their thoroughly Hebraic manner, the ana- 
logies which they present to the sayings of the Jewish 
doctors of the same period, their perfect harmony with 



* See, for example, chap, ix and xi. Notice especially the strange effect of 
passageslike Jb?OT, XIX, 35; xx, 31; xxi, 20-23, 24-25, when we remember the 
total absence of reflections which distinguishes the synoptics. 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

Galilean nature, all these characters, if we compare 
them with the obscure gnosticism and the distorted 
metaphysics which fill the discourses of Jolm, speak 
loudly enough. This does not mean that there are not 
in the discourses of John wonderful flashes of light, 
touches which come really from Jesus.* Bat the mys- 
tic tone of these discourses corresponds in no wise to 
the character of the eloquence of Jesus snch as we 
imagine it from the synoptics. A new spirit has come; 
gnosticism has already commenced ; the Galilean era 
of the kingdom of God is ended ; the hope of the 
speedy coming of Christ grows dim ; we are entering 
into the aridities of metaphysics, into the darkness of 
abstract dogma. The spirit of Jesus is not there, and 
if the son of Zebedee really traced these pages, cer- 
tainly he had entirely forgotten while writing them 
the lake of Genesareth, and the delightful conversa- 
tions which he had heard upon its banks. 

A circumstance, moreover, which fully proves that 
the discourses reported by the fourth gospel are not 
historic, but compositions intended to cover with the 
authority of Jesus, certain doctrines dear to the com- 
piler, is their perfect harmony with the intellectual 
state of Asia Minor, at the time they were written. 
Asia Minor was then the theatre of a singular move- 
ment of syncretic philosophy ; all the germs of gnos- 
ticism were already in existence. John appeai-s to 
have drunk from these foreign fountains. It may be 
that after the crises of the year 68 (the date of the apo- 
calypse) and the year 70 (the fall of Jerusalem), the 
old apostle, with his ardent and mobile soul, disabused 

* Por example iv, 1 seqq. ; xv, 12 seqq. Many sayings recounted by John are 
found in the synoptics (xii, 16; xv, 20). 



30 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

of the belief in the speedy appearance of the Son of 
man in the clouds, inclined towards the ideas which he 
found about him, manj of which readily amalgamated 
with certain Christian doctrines. In attributing these 
new ideas to Jesus, he but followed a very natural in- 
clination. Our memories are transformed with all the 
rest ; the idea of a person whom we have known, 
changes with us.* Considering Jesus as the incarna- 
tion of truth, John could not but attribute to him what 
he had come to take for truth. 

And now finally, we will add that probably John 
himself had small part in this, that this change was 
made around him rather than by him. We are some- 
times tempted to believe that precious words, coming 
from the apostle, were employed by his disciples in a 
sense very different from the primitive evangelical 
spirit. Indeed, certain portions of the fourth gospel 
have been added afterwards; such is the twenty-first 
chapter entire,f in which the author seems to have in- 
tended to render homage to the apostle Peter after his 
death, and to reply to the objections which might be, 
or which had already been, drawn from the death of 
John himself (v. 21-23). Several other passages bear 
traces of erasures and corrections. if 

It is impossible, at this distance, to possess the key 
of all these singular problems, and doubtless, many 
surprises would be in reserve for us, could we penetrate 
into the secrets of this mysterious school of Ephesus, 
which more than once appears to have taken delight 



* Thus Napoleon became a liberal in the memory of his ccmpaftions in exile, 
when they, after their return, were thrown into the midst of the political society 
of the time. 

+ The verses x:2, 30-31, evidently formed the ancient conclusion. 

X Vl,2, 22; Yll,22. 



INTRODUCTION. 31 

in obscure paths. But a decisive test is this. Every 
person who sits down to write the life of Jesus without 
a rigid theory as to the relative value of the gospels, 
allowing himself to be guided entirely by the senti- 
ment of the subject, will be led in a multitude of cases 
to prefer the narrative of John to that of the synop- 
tics. The last months of the life of Jesus in particular 
are explained only by John ; many features of the 
Passion, unintelligible in the synoptics,* assume in the 
relation of the fourth gospel, probability and possibili- 
ty. On the contrary, I dare defy any person to com- 
pose a consistent life of Jesus, if he makes account of 
the discourses which John attributes to Jesus. This 
style of extolling himself and demonstrating himself 
incessantly, this perpetual argumentation, this scenic 
representation without simplicity, these long moraliz- 
ings at the end of each miracle, these stiff and awk- 
ward discourses, the tone of which is so often false and 
unequal,^ are unendurable to a man of taste by the 
side of the delicious sayings of the synoptics. We 
have here, evidently, artificial pieces,:j: which repre- 
sent to us the teachings of Jesus, as the dialogues of 
Plato render to us the conversation of Socrates. They 
are in some sort the variations of a musician improvis- 
ing on his own account upon a given theme. The 
theme may be not without some authenticity ; but in 
the execution, the artist gives his fantasy full play. 
We feel the factitious procedure, the rhetoric, the gloss.] 

* For example, that which concerns the announcement of the treachery of 
Judas. 

f See, for example, II, 25; in, 32,33, and the long disputations of chap, vu, 
VIII and IX. 

X Often we feel that the author seeks pretexts for bringing in discourses (ch, 
HI, V, VIII, xni seqq. 

U For eTrample, chap. xvn. 



32 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Besides, the vocabulary of Jesus is not found in the 
fragments of which we are speaking. The expression 
" kingdom of God," which was so familiar to the mas- 
ter,* is seen but once.f On the other hand, the style of 
the discourses attributed to Jesus by the fourth gospel, 
presents the most complete analogy to that of the epis- 
tles of St. John ; we see that in writing his discourses, 
the author followed, not his memories, but the rather 
monotonous movement of his own thought. An entire 
new mystic language is unfolded, a language of which 
the synoptics had not the least idea (" world," " truth," 
"life," "light," " darkness," etc.). Had Jesus ever 
spoken in this style, which has in it nothing Hebrew, 
nothing Jewish, nothing Talmudic, if I may so express 
myself, how could a single one of his hearers have 
kept the secret so well. 

Literary history furnishes, moreover, another exam- 
ple which presents the closest analogy with the histo- 
rical phenomena that we have described, and which 
Berves to explain it. Socrates, who like Jesus, did not 
write, is known to us by two of his disciples, Xeno- 
phon and Plato, the first corresponding by his lim- 
pid, transparent, impersonal style, to the synoptics, the 
second reminding us, b^'' his vigorous individuality, of 
the author of the fourth gospel. To set forth the So- 
cratic teaching, must we follow the " Dialogues " of 
Plato, or the " Memorabilia " of Xenophon ? There 
can be no doubt in regard to this ; the whole world 
cleaves to the " Memorabilia," and not to the " Dia- 
logues." Does Plato, however, teach us nothing in 
regard to Socrates ? Would a careful critic, in writing 
/ 

♦ Besiies the synoptics, the Acta, the Epistle of St. Paul and the Apocalype* 
attest it t John, in, 8, 5. 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

the biography of the latter, neglect the " Dialogues ?" 
"Who would dare to maintain that? The analogy, 
moreover, is not complete, and the diflerence is in fa- 
vor of the fourth gospel. 

4 The author of this gospel is, in fact, the better bio- 
grapher, as if Plato, although attributing to his mas- 
ter fictitious discourses, knew most important things 
in regard to his life, of which Xenophon was entirely 
ignorant. 

Without pronouncing upon the material question, 
what hand traced the fourth gospel, and even while 
inclining to believe that the discourses at least are not 
by the son of Zebcdee, we admit, therefore, that this is 
really " the Gospel according to John," in the same 
sense as the first and second gospels are really the gos- 
pels "according to Matthew," and "according to 
Mark." The historical sketch of the fourth gospel is 
the life of Jesus as it was known in the school of John ; 
it is the relatioi?. v;^hich Aristion and Preshyteras Jo- 
annes gave to Papias without telling him that it was 
written, or rather attaching no importance to that pe- 
culiarity. I will add that, in my opinion, this school 
was better acquainted with the external circumstances 
of the life of the founder than the group whose mem- 
ories made up the synoptic gospels. It had, especially 
in regard to the sojourns of Jesus at Jerusalem, data 
which the others did not possess. The adherents of 
the school treated Mark as an indifferent biographer, 
and had invented a system to explain his hiatuses.* 
Certain passages of Luke, in which there is, as it were, 
an echo of the Johannic traditions,f prove, moreover, 

* Papias, loc. d<. 

f Thus the pardon of the woman taken in adultery, the acquaintance of Luke 
with the family of Bethany , his type of the character of Martha answering to the 

2* 



34 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

that these traditions were not entirely unknown to the 
rest of the Christian family. 

These elucidations will be sufficient, I think, to show, 
in the course of the narrative, the motives which de- 
termined me to give the preference to one or another 
of the four guides which we have for the life of Jesus. 
Upon the whole, I accept the four canonical gospels as 
authentic. All, in my judgment, date back to the first 
century, and they are substantially by the authors to 
whom they are attributed ; but in historic value they 
are very unequal. Matthew clearly deserves unlimit- 
ed confidence as regards the discourses; he gives the 
Logia^ actual notes from a clear and living memory of 
the teaching of Jesus. A splendor at once soft and 
terrible, a divine power, if I may use the term, itali- 
ces these words, detaches them from the context, and 
renders them easily recognizable to the critic. He 
who attempts the task of forming a regular composi- 
tion out of the gospel history, possesses in this respect 
an excellent touchstone. The real words of Jesus will 
not be concealed ; as soon as we touch them in this 
chaos of traditions of unequal value, we feel them vi- 
brate ; they come spontaneously, and take their own 
place in the narration, where they stand out in unpar- 
alleled relief. 

The narrative portions grouped in the first gospel 
about this primitive knot, have not the same authority. 
There are in them many legends of a rather flaccid 
contour, sprung from the piety of the second Christian 

i^»7))covSl of John (XII, 2), the incident of the woman who wiped the feet of Je- 
■ius with her hair, a dim notion of the journeys of Jesus to Jerusalem, the idea 
that he appeared at the Passion before three authorities, the opinion of the au- 
thor that some of the disciples witnessed the crucifixion, his acquaintance with 
the action of Annas by the side of Caiaphas, he appearance of the angel in the 
agou7 (comp. John, jui, 28-29;. 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

generation.* The gospel of Mark is much more firm, 
more precise, less cumbered with fables of later inser- 
tion. Of the three synoptics, this has come to us tlie 
oldest, the most original, that to which fewest subse- 
quent elements have been added. The material details 
in Mark have a precision which we seek in vain in the 
other evangelists. He is fond of reporting certain 
words of Jesus in Syro-chaldaic.f He is full of minute 
observations coming without any doubt from an eye- 
witness. Nothing opposes the idea that this eye-wit- 
ness, who evidently had followed Jesus, who had 
loved him and known him intimately, and who had a 
living remembrance of him, was the apostle Peter 
himself, as Fapias says. 

As to the work of Luke, its historic value is clearly 
less. It is a document of second-hand. The narration 
is riper. The sayings of Jesus are more premeditated, 
more composite. Some teachings are carried to excess 
and falsified.;}: Writing out of Palestine, and certainly 
after the siege of Jerusalein,§ the author indicates 
places with less precision than the two other synoptics ; 
he has a wrong idea of the temple which he imagines 
to be an oratory, whither men went to perform their 
devotions ;|| he softens details endeavoring to reconcile 
difi'erent accounts ;^ he tones down passages which had 
become embarrassing from the standpoint of a more 
exalted idea of the divinity of Jesus ;"^'^ he exaggerates 
the marvellous ;f f commits errors of chronology ;J:1: 

* Oh. I and ii especially. See also xxvii, 3 seqq. : 19, 60, in comparison with 
Mark. 

+ V, 41; VII, 34; xv, 34. Matthew presents this peculiarity but once (xxvn, 46). 

J XIV, 26. The rules of the apostolate (ch. x) have an especial character of 
exaltation. ^ xix, 41 , 43-44; xxi, 9, 20: xxixi, 29. 

I II, 37; XVIII, 10 seqq, XXIV, 53. ^ For example, iv, 16 

*iii,2i. He omits Matt., XXIX, 36. ft i^i 14; xxii, 43, 44. 
Xt For example, in what concerns Quirinius, Lysaniaa, and Theudas. 



36 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIAmTY. 

he ignores Hebrew entirely ;* quotes no word of Jesus 
in that language, and calls all localities bj their Greek 
names. We feel the compiler, the man who has not 
seen the witnesses himself, but who works upon texts, 
and allows himself to do great violence to them in or- 
der to reconcile them. Luke probably had before him 
the biographical collection of Mark and the Logia of 
Matthew. But he takes great liberties with them ; 
sometimes he fuses two anecdotes or two parables into 
one ;f sometimes he decomposes one into two.:j: He 
interprets documents according to his personal under- 
standing ; he has not the absolute impassibility of 
Matthew and Mark. We are able to say certain things 
in regard to his tastes and his peculiar tendencies : he 
is a very precise devotee ;|| he makes it important 
that Jesus performed all the Jewish rites ;§ he is an 
exalted democrat and Ebionite, that is, thoroughly op- 
posed to property, and persuaded that the day of the 
poor is at hand ;T he is especially fond of all the anec- 
dotes which place in relief the conversion of sinners, 
the exaltation of the humble ;^* he often modifies the 
old traditions to give them this turn.f f He admits into 
his first pages legends in regard to the infancy of Je- 
sus, told with these long amplifications, those canticles, 
those conventional methods which form the essential 
character of the apocryphal gospels. Finally, there 
are in the account of the last days of Jesus some cir- 



* Comp. Luke i, 31, with Matt. , i, 21. f For example, xix, 12-27. 

% Thus, the supper at Bethany furnishes him with two stories (vii, 36-48, and 
1,38-42. II xxni,56. 

§11, 21, 22, 39, 41, 42. It is an Ebionite peculiarity. Cf. Philosophumena, VII, vi, 34. 

\ The parable of Dives and Lazarus. Comp vi,20seqq.; 24seqq.; xn, 13 
seqq. xvi entire; xxii, 35. Comp. ^c<s, ii, 44, 45; v, 1 seqq. 

*=* The woman who anointed his feet, Zaccheus, the good thief, the parable of 
the Pharisee and the publican, the prodigal son. 

tt For example, Mary of Bethany becomes to him a repentant courtezaiL 



INTRODUCTION. 37 

cumstances full of tender feeling and certain words of 
Jesus of a delicious beauty,* which are not found in 
the more authentic narratives, and in which we per- 
ceive the work of legend. Luke probably borrowed 
them from a more recent collection, the main object of 
which was to excite religious feeling. 

Great reserve has of course been necessary in regard 
to a document of this kind. It would have been as 
uncritical to neglect it as to employ it without dis- 
crimination. Luke had before him originals which we 
have not. He is less an evangelist than a biographer 
of Jesus, a " harmonist," after the manner of Marcion 
and Tatian. But he is a biographer of the first cen- 
tury, a divine artist who, independently of the materi- 
als which he derived from more ancient sources, pic- 
tures to us the character of the founder, with a happi- 
ness in feature, and an inspiration in the whole, a re- 
lief which the other two synoptics have not. His gos- 
pel Las the greatest charm for the reader, for to the in- 
comparable beauty of the common ground, he adds a 
portion of art and composition which singularly in- 
creases the effect of the portrait, without seriously in- 
juring its truth. 

Upon the whole, we may say that the synoptic com- 
pilation has passed through three stages: first, the 
original documentary state (Matthew's XoY<aj Mark^s 
Xsx^svra ^ 'n'pap(;^£vra), first collections wliich no longer 
exist ; second, the state of simple mixture, in which 
the original documents are amalgamated with no effort 
at composition, without disclosing any personal view 

* Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, the bloody sweat, the meeting of the holy- 
women, the good thief, etc. The saying to the women of Jerusalem (xxiii, 28, 
29) could hardly have been originated until after the siege in the year 70. 



38 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

on the part of the authors (the present gospels of Mat- 
thew and Mark) ; third, the state of combination or of 
intended and premeditated digestion, in which we per- 
ceive the effort to reconcile the different versions 
(Luke's gospel). The gospel of John, as we have said, 
is a composition of a different order, and entirely pe- 
culiar. 

It will be remarked that I have made no use of the 
apocryphal gospels. These compositions can in no 
wise be put upon the same footing as the canonical 
gospels. They are flat and puerile amplifications, 
based upon the canonical gospels, and adding to them 
nothing of value. On the contrary, I have been very 
careful to collect the fragments preserved by the Fa- 
thers of the Church of ancient gospels which once ex- 
isted along with the canonical and which are now lost, 
such as the Gospel according to the Hebrews, the Gos- 
pel according to the Egyptians, and the Gospels called 
those of Justin, Marcion and Tatian. The two first 
are especially important in that they were written in 
Aramaean like the Logia of Matthew, that they appear 
to constitute a variety of the gospel of that apostle, 
and that they were the gospel of the Ebionim, that is, 
of those little Christian communities of Batanea who 
kept up the use of the Syro-chaldaic, and who appear 
in some respects to have continued the line of Jesus. 
But it must be confessed, that in the state in which 
they have reached us, these gospels are inferior, for 
critical authority, to the form of Matthew's gospel 
which we possess. 

The historic value which I attribute to the gospels 
is now, I think, quite understood. They are neither 
biographies, after the manner of Suetonius, nor ficti- 



INTRODUCTION. 39 

tioiis legends like those of Philostratus ; they are le- 
gendary biographies. I would compare them with the 
legends of the Saints, the Lives of Plotiniis, Prochis, Isi- 
doriis, and other works of the same kind, in which his- 
toric triitli and the intention of presenting models of 
virtue are combined in different degrees. Inaccura- 
cy, which is one of the peculiarities of all popular 
compositions, is especially perceptible in them. Sup- 
pose that ten or twelve years ago, three or four old 
soldiers of the empire had each sat down to write the 
life of ITapoleon from memory. It is clear that their 
relations would present numerous errors and great dis- 
crepancies. One of them would put Wagram before 
Marengo ; another would write without hesitation that 
Napoleon drove the government of Kobespierre from 
the Tuileries ; a third would omit expeditions of the 
highest importance. But one thing would certainly 
be realized with a good degree of truth from these art- 
less relations, — the character of the hero, the impres- 
sion which he made upon those about him. In this 
view, such popular histories are better than formal, 
authoritative history. The same thing may be said 
of the gospels. Intent solely on setting prominently 
forth the excellence of the Master, his miracles and his 
teachings, the evangelists exhibit complete indiffer- 
ence to everything which is not the very spirit of Je- 
sus, Contradictions as to times, places, persons were 
regarded as insignificant ; for, the higher the degree 
of inspiration attributed to the words of Jesus, the far- 
ther they were from according this inspiration to the 
narrators. These were looked upon simply as scribes, 
and had but one rule : to omit nothing that they knew.* 

* See the passage of Paplas hitherto cited. 



40 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

It cannot be contradicted that to some extent pre- 
conceived ideas must have mingled with these memo- 
ries. Several stories, of Lnke especially, V7ere devised 
in order to brmg out vividly certain traits of the phy- 
siognomy of Jesus. This physiognomy itself suffered 
changes every day. Jesus would be a phenomenon 
unique in history, if, with the part which he enacted, 
he had not been early transfigured. The legend of 
Alexander was complete before the generation of his 
companions in arms was extinct ; that of St. Francis 
d'Assisi commenced while he was yet alive. A rapid 
work of metamorphosis was going on also, during the 
twenty or thirty years which followed the death of Je- 
sus, and imposed upon his biography the absolute 
traits of an ideal legend. Death adds perfection to 
the most perfect man ; it renders him faultless to 
those who have loved him. At the same time, more- 
over, that they wished to paint the Master, they wish- 
ed to demonstrate him. Many anecdotes were con- 
ceived to prove that in him the prophecies considered 
as Messianic had been accomplished. But this pro- 
cess, the importance of which must not be denied, can- 
not explain all. "No Jewish work of the time gives a 
series of prophecies precisely set forth which the Mes- 
siah was to accomplish. Many of the Messianic allu- 
sions seized upon by the evangelists are so subtle, so 
distorted, that we can believe only that all that cor- 
responds to a doctrine generally admitted. Sometimes 
the reasoning was thus : " The Messiah was to do a cer- 
tain thing : now Jesus is the Messiah ; therefore Je- 
sus has done a certain thing." Sometimes it was the 
converse : " A certain thing happened to Jesus ; now 
Jesus is the Messiah ; therefore a certain thing was to 



INTRODUCTION. 41 

happen to the Messiah.* Too simple explanations are 
always false in an analj^sis of the tissue of these pro- 
found creations of popular sentiment, which defy all 
systems by their lichness and their infinite variety. 

It IB hardly necessary to say that with such docu- 
ments, in order to give only what is incontestable, we 
must limit ourselves to general lines. In nearly all 
ancient histories, even in those which are much less 
legendary than these, the details leave room for infi- 
nite doubt. When we have two accounts of the same 
act, it is extremely rare that the two accounts agree. 
Is not this a reason, when we have but one, for imag- 
ining many perplexities ? We may say that among 
the anecdotes, the speeches, the celebrated sayings re- 
ported by the historians, not one is rigorously authen- 
tic. Were there stenographers to fix these fleeting 
words ? Was there an annalist always present to note 
the gestures, the manner, the feelings of the actor ? 
Endeavor to arrive at the truth in regard to the man- 
ner in which this or that cote mporan eons event hap- 
pened ; you will not succeed. Two accounts of the 
same occurrence given by eye-witnesses differ essen- 
tially. Must we therefore renounce all the coloring 
of narratives, and confine ourselves to the general 
enunciation of facts ? This would be to suppress his- 
tory. Indeed, I do believe that, if we except certain 
short, almost mnemonic axioms, none of the discourses 
reported by Matthew are literal ; our stenographed 
trials scarcely are. I willingly admit that this admi- 
rable relation of the Passion contains a multitude of 
approximations. Should we, however, write the life 
of Jesus, omitting these teachings which represent to 

* See, for example, John, xix, 23, 24. 



42 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

US so vividly the physiognomy of his discourses, and 
confine ourselves to saying with Josephus and Tacitus 
" that he was put to death by the order of Pilate at the 
instigation of the priests ?" That would be, in my 
opinion, a species of inaccuracy worse than that to 
which we are exposed by admitting the details which 
the texts furnish us. These details are not true to the 
letter ; but they are true with a superior truth ; they 
are truer than the naked truth, in this sense, that they 
are truth rendered expressive and eloquent, raised to 
the hight of an idea. 

I beg those persons who may think 1 have accorded 
too great confidence to stories in great part legendary, 
to remember the observation which I have just made. 
To what would the life of Alexander be reduced, were 
we to confine ourselves to that which is absolutely 
certain? Even the traditions that are in part erro- 
neous, contain a portion of truth which history cannot 
neglect. M. Sprenger has not been blamed for mak- 
ing, in writing the life of Mahomet, great account of 
the hadith or oral traditions in regard to the prophet, 
or for often attributing literally to his hero sayings 
known only from this source. The traditions in regard 
to Mahomet, however, have no historical character su- 
perior to that of the discourses and narratives which 
compose the gospels. They were written between the 
year 50 and 140 of the hegira . In writing the histo- 
ry of the Jewish schools during the centuries which 
immediately preceded and followed the birth of Chris- 
tianity, we should have no scruples about attributing 
to Hillel, Schammai and Gamaliel the maxims which 
are assigned to them by the Mischna and the Gemara^ 



INTRODUCTION. 43 

although these great compilations were put into form 
several hundred years after the doctors in question. 

As to those who believe, on the contrary, that his- 
tory should be written by reproducing without inter- 
pretation the documents that have come down to us, I 
beg them to observe that in such a subject that is not 
permissible. The four principal documents are in fla- 
grant contradiction one with another ; Josephus, more- 
over, sometimes corrects them. We must make a 
choice. To assert that an event could not have hap- 
pened in two ways at once, nor in an impossible way, 
is not to impose upon history an a 'priori philosophy. 
When we possess several different versions of a single 
act, when credulity has mingled fabulous circumstan- 
ces with all these versions, the historian should not 
conclude that the act is unreal ; but he should in such 
cases be upon his guard, compare the texts and pro- 
ceed by induction. There is in particular one class of 
relations to which this principle must necessarily be 
applied, — supernatural relations. To seek to explain 
these relations or to reduce them to legends, is not to 
mutilate the facts in the name of theory ; it is to base 
ourselves upon the observation of facts. None of the 
miracles with which ancient histories are filled, occur- 
red under scientific conditions. Observation never 
once contradicted, teaches us that miracles occur only 
in periods and countries in which they are believed in 
and before persons disposed to believe in them. ]^o 
miracle was ever performed before an assembly of men 
capable of establishing the miraculous character of an 
act. Neither men of the people nor men of the world 
are competent for that. Great precautions and a long 
habit of scientific research are requisite. In our days 



44 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

have we not seen nearly all men tlie dupes of gross 
prestiges or puerile illusions ? Marvellous acts attested 
by every inhabitant of small towns have become, un- 
der a more severe scrutiny, acts of felony,* If it is 
certain that no cotemporaneous miracle bears exam- 
ination, is it not probable that the miracles of the 
past, all of which were performed in popular assem- 
blages, would also present to us, were it possible for us 
to criticise them in detail, their share of illusion? 

It is not therefore in the name of this or that phi- 
losophy, but in the name of constant experience, that 
we banish miracle from history. We do not say ^' Mi- 
racle is impossible ;" we say : " there has been hitlier- 
to no miracle proved." Let a thauniaturgist present 
himself to-morrow with testimony sufficiently import- 
ant to merit our attention ; let him announce that he 
is able, I will suppose, to raise the dead ; what would 
be done ? A commission composed of physiologists, 
physicians, chemists, persons experienced in historical 
criticism, would be appointed. This commission would 
choose the corpse, make certain that death was real, 
designate the hall in which the experiment should be 
made, and regulate the whole system of precautions 
necessary to leave no room for doubt. If, under such 
conditions, the resurrection should be performed, a 
probability almost equal to certainty would be attain- 
ed. However, as an experiment ought always to be 
capable of being repeated, as one ought to be capable 
of doing again what one has done once, and as in the 
matter of miracles there can be no question of easy or 
difficult, the thaumaturgist would be invited to repro- 
duce his marvellous act under other circumstances, 

• See the Oazdie des aVi&uwaua, 10 sept, et 11 nov. 1851. 28 mai 1857. 



INTRODUCTION. 45 

upon other bodies, in another medium. If the miracle 
succeeds each time, two things would be proven : first, 
that supernatural acts do come to pass in the world; 
second, that the power to perform them belongs or is 
delegated to certain persons. But who does not see 
that no miracle was ever performed under such condi- 
tions ; that always hitherto the thaumaturgist has cho- 
sen the subject of the experiment, chosen the means, 
chosen the public; that, moreover, it is, in most cases, 
the people themselves who from the undeniable need 
which they feel of seeing in great events and great 
men something divine, create the marvellous legends 
afterwards. Till we have new light, we shall main- 
tain, therefore, this principle of historical criticism, 
that a supernatural relation cannot be accepted as 
such, that it always implies credulity or imposture, 
that the duty of the historian is to interpret it, and to 
seek what portion of truth and what portion of error 
it may contain. 

Such are the rules which have been followed in the 
composition of this life. To the reading of the texts I 
have been able to add a fresh source of light, an ex- 
amination of the places in which the events occurred. 
The scientific commission for the exploration of an- 
cient Phoenicia, of which I was the director in 1860 
and 1861,* led me to reside on the frontiers of Galilee 
and to traverse it frequently. I have travelled through 
the evangelical province in every direction ; I have 
fisited Jerusalem, Hebron, and Samaria ; scarcely any 
locality important in the history of Jesus has escaped 
me. All this history which, at a distance, seems float- 
ing in the clouds of an unreal world, thus assumed a 

• The book containing tlie results of this mission is in press. 



46 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

body, a solidity which astonished me. The striking 
accord of the texts and the places, the wonderful har- 
mony of the evangelical ideal with the landscape 
which served as its setting, were to me as a revela- 
tion. I had before my eyes a fifth gospel, torn but 
Btill legible, and thenceforth, through the narratives of 
Matthew and Mark, instead of an abstract being, 
which one would say had never existed, I saw a won- 
derful human form live and move. During: the sum- 
mer, having been compelled to go up to Ghazir in 
Mount Lebanon to take a little rest, I fixed with rapid 
strokes the image which had appeared to me, and the 
result was this book. When a cruel fate intervened 
to hasten my departure, I had but few pages left to 
write. The book has been, in this way, composed en- 
tirely near the very place where Jesus was born and 
developed. Since my return, I have labored inces- 
santly to verify and to test in detail the sketch which 
I had written in haste in a Maronite hut with five or 
six volumes about me. 

Many will, perhaps, regret the biographical form 
which has thus been given to my work. When I for 
the first time conceived a history of Christianity, what 
I wished to write was in fact a history of doctrines, in 
which men would have had scarcely any part. Jesus 
would hardly have been named; I should have en- 
deavored, above all, to show how the ideas which were 
produced under his name, germinated and spread over 
the world. But I have learned since, that history is 
not a mere play of abstractions, that in it men are 
more than doctrines. It was not a certain theory in 
regard to justification and redemption which produced 
the Reformation ; it was Luther, it was Calvin. Par- 



INTRODUCTION. 47 

seeism, Hellenism, Judaism, might have combined in 
all forms ; the doctrines of the resurrection and the 
Word might have been developed for centuries with- 
out producing this fecund, unique, sublime fact, which 
is called Christianity. This fact is the work of Jesus, 
of St. Paul, of St. John. To write the history of Je- 
sus, St. Paul and St. John, is to write the history of 
the origins ofChristianity. The previous movements 
belong to our subject only in so far as they serve to 
throw lighr upon these extraordinary men, who must 
of course have had some relation with what pre- 
ceded them. In such an effort to revivify the lofty 
souls of the past, we must be permitted to some extent 
to divine and conjecture. A great life is an organic 
whole which cannot be represented by the simple ag- 
glomeration of little facts. A deep feeling must em- 
brace the whole and form its unity. The method of 
art in such a subject is a good guide ; the exquisite 
tact of a Goethe would here find full scope. The es- 
sential conditions of art creations is to form a living 
system every portion of which answers and demands 
every other. In histories of this kind the great sign 
that we have attained the truth, is success in combin- 
ing the texts so as to constitute a logical, probable, 
concordant narrative. The intimate laws of life, of the 
advance of organic products, and of the toning down 
of shades, must be consulted at every step ; for what 
we have here to find, is not the material circumstance, 
impossible to verify, but the very soul of the history ; 
what we have to seek is not the petty certainty of the 
minu v^, but the justness of the general idea, the truth 
of the coloring. Each touch which violates the rules 
of classic narration, should warn us to beware ; for the 



48 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

fact which we have to narrate was living, natural and 
harmonious. If we do not succeed in rendering it such 
in our narration, surely it is because we have not at- 
tained to the right view of it. Suppose that in restor- 
ing the Minerva of Phidias according to the texts, an 
unnatural, maimed, artificial whole should be produ- 
ced ; what must we conclude therefrom ? But one 
thing : that the texts demand artistic interpretation, 
that they must be gently entreated until the}' finally 
combine to produce a whole in which all the materials 
are happily fused. Should we be sure of having then, 
feature for feature, the Greek statue ? No ; but at 
least we would not have a caricature ; we would have 
the general spirit of the work, one of the forms in 
which it might have existed. 

This idea of a living organism we have not hesitated 
to take as a guide in the general structure of the nar- 
rative. The reading of the gospels is enough to show 
that their authors, though they had in their minds a 
very just plan of the life of Jesus, were not guided by 
very rigorous chronological data; Papias, moreover, 
tells us so expressly.* The expressions : '' In those 

days after that then and it came to 

pass that ,'' etc., are simple transitions designed. 

to connect the different stories. To leave all the ma- 
terials furnished us by the Evangelists in the disorder 
in which tradition gives them, would no more be to 
write the history of Jesus, than one would write the 
history of a celebrated man by giving promiscuously 
the letters and anecdotes of his youth, his old age, and 
his prime. The Koran, which also presents to us in 
the most complete confusion the fragments of the dif- 

*Loc.cit. 



INTRODUCTION. 49 

ferent periods of the life of Mahomet, has yielded its 
secret to an ingenious criticism ; the chronological order 
in which these fragments were composed, has been 
discovered with approximate certainty. Such a read- 
jnstment is much more difficult for the gospel, the 
public life of Jesus having been shorter and less 
crowded with events than the life of the founder of 
Islam. However, the attempt to find a clue by which 
to guide our steps in this labyrinth, cannot be taxed 
with gratuitous subtlety. It is no great abuse of hy- 
potheses to suppose that a religious founder begins by 
adopting the moral aphorisms which are already in cir- 
culation in his time, and the practices which are most 
prevalent ; that, when more mature, and in possession 
of his full powers, he takes pleasure in a species of 
calm, poetic eloquence, far removed from all contro- 
versy, suave and free as pure sentiment ; that he 
gradually becomes exalted, excited by opposition, and 
ends in polemics and strong invective. Such are the 
periods which have been distinguished in the Koran. 
The order adopted with an exquisite tact by the syn- 
optics, supposes an analogous progress. Read Mat- 
thew attentively, and there will be found in the dis- 
tribution of the discourses, a gradation strongly anal- 
ogous to that wliich we have just indicated. There 
will be observed, moreover, the difference in forms of 
expression of which we make use when we attempt to 
explain the progress of the ideas of Jesus. The reader 
may, if he prefers, see in the divisions adopted in this 
regard, only the sections indispensable to the method- 
ical exposition, of a profound and complex mind. 

If the love of a subject may assist in its comprehen- 
sion, it will also be recognized, I hope, that this condi- 

3* 



50 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

tion has not been wanting. To write the history of a 
religion, it is necessary, first, to have believed it (with- 
out that, we could not understand by what it has 
charmed and satisfied the human conscience) ; in the 
second place, to believe it no longer implicitly ; for 
implicit faith is incompatible with sincere history. 
But loves( goes without faith. Because we do not at- 
tach ourselves to any of the forms which captivate 
human adoration, we do not renounce the enjoyment 
of all that is good and beautiful in them. No passing 
vision exhausts divinity; God was revealed before Je- 
sus, God will be revealed after him. Widely unequal 
and so much the more divine, as they are the greater 
and the more spontaneous, the manifestations of the 
God concealed in the depths of the human conscience, 
are all of the same order. Jesus cannot therefore, be- 
long exclusively to those who call themselves his dis- 
ciples. He is the common honor of all who bear a 
human heart. His glory consists, not in being ban- 
ished from history ; we render him a truer worship by 
showing that all history is incomprehensible without 
him. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PLACE OP JESUS IN THE WORLD'S HISTOEY. 

The capital event of the history of the world is the 
revohition by which the noblest portions of humanity 
passed from the ancient religions, comprised under the 
vague name of paganism, to a religion founded upon 
the divine unity, the trinity, the incarnation of the 
Son of God. This conversion required nearly a thou- 
sand years for its accomplishment. The new religion 
occupied at least three hundred years in its formation 
alone. But the origin of the revolution with which 
we have to do, is an event which occurred during the 
reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. Then lived a su- 
perior person who by his bold initiative, and by the 
love which he inspired, created the object and fixed 
the starting-point of the future faith of humanity. 

Man, when first he distinguished himself from the 
animal, was religious, that is to say he saw, in nature, 
something beyond reality, and, for himself, something 
beyond death. This feeling, for thousands of years, 



52 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

wandered about in the strangest way. With many 
races, it never went beyond a belief in sorcerers in the 
crude form in which we still find it in certain parts of 
Oceanica. With some, the religions sentiment culmi- 
nated in the shameful scenes of butchery which char- 
acterize the ancient religion of Mexico. With others, 
especially in Africa, it reached pure fetishism, that is 
the adoration of a material object, to which were at- 
tributed supernatural powers. ' As the instinct of love, 
which at times raises the commonest man above him- 
self, sometimes changes into brutality and ferocity, so 
this divine faculty of religion long seemed a cancer 
which must be extirpated from the human race, a 
cause of errors and of crimes which the wise must en- 
deavor to suppress. 

The brilliant civilizations which were developed in 
a very remote antiquity by China, by Babylonia and 
Egypt, caused religion to take certain steps in advance. 
China attained at a very early date a species of sensible 
mediocrity, which forbade any great disorders. It 
knew neither the advantages nor the abuses of the 
genius of religion. At all events, it had in this re- 
spect no influence over the direction of the great cur- 
rent of humanity. The religions of Babylonia and 
Syria never extricated themselves from a basis of 
amazing sensuality ; these religions continued, until 
their extinction in the fourth and fifth centuries of our 
era, schools of immorality, in which were sometimes 
opened, by a sort of poetic intuition, penetrating vistas 
of the divine world. Egypt, beneath a species of ap- 
parent fetishism, had at an early day metaphysical 
dogmas and a lofty symbolism. But undoubtedly 
these interpretations of a refined theology were not 



LIFE OF JESUS. 58 

primitive. Never has man, in possession of a clear 
idea, amused himself by clothing it in symbols ; gen- 
erally it is after long reflection, and because it is im- 
possible for the human mind to resign itself to the ab- 
surd, that ideas are sought beneath the old mystic im- 
ages, the meaning of which has been lost. It is not 
from Egypt, moreover, that the faith of humanity has 
come. The elements which, in the religion of a Chris- 
tian, come, through a thousand transformations, from 
Egypt and Syria, are external forms without much 
consequence, or scoria such as the most refined wor- 
ships always retain. The great faults of the religions 
of which we are speaking, was their essentially super- 
stitious character ; what they scattered over the world 
was millions of amulets and abracadabras. 'No grand 
moral thought could originate among races debased 
by centuries of despotism, and accustomed to institu- 
tions which prohibited almost every exercise of indi- 
vidual liberty. 

The poetry of the soul, faith, liberty, honor, devo- 
tion, apj eared in the world with the two great races 
w^hich, in one sense, have formed humanity, I mean 
the Indo-European race and the Semitic race. The 
first intuitions of the Indo-European race were essen- 
tially naturalistic. But it was a deep, moral natural- 
ism, a loving embrace of nature by man, a delicious 
poetry, full of the feeling of the infinite, the principle 
in short of all that German and Celtic genius, of \^hat 
a Shakespeare, of what a Goethe was afterwards to ex- 
press. It was neither premeditated religion nor mo- 
rality; it was melancholy, tenderness, imagination; it 
was above all entirely serious, the essential condition 
of morality and religion. The faith of hunninity, how- 



64 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

ever, could not come from it, because these old wor- 
ships had great diflBculty in detaching themselves from 
polytheism, and did not attain to a very clear symbol. 
Brahminism has lived to our days only by the astou- 
ishing privilege of conservation which India seems to 
possess. Buddhism failed in all its attempts towards 
the west. Druidism remained a form exclusively na- 
tional and without universal range. The G-reek at- 
tempts at reform, Orphism, the Mysteries, did not suffice 
to give solid aliment to souls. Persia alone succeeded 
in forming a dogmatic religion, almost monotheistic, 
and wisely organized; but it is very possible that even 
this organization was imitated or borrowed. At all 
events, Persia did not convert the world; she was 
converted, on the contrary, when she saw rising upon 
her frontiers the banner of divine unity proclaimed 
by Islam. 

To the Semitic* race belongs the glory of having 
produced the religion of humanity. Far beyond the 
confines of history, under his tent, remaining pure 
from the disorders of a world already corrupt, the Be- 
douin patriarch prepared the faith of the world. 
Strong antipathy to the voluptuous worships of Syria, 
great symplicity of ritual, complete absence of tem- 
ples, the idol reduced to insignificant theraphim^ such 
was his superiority. Among all the nomadic tribes of 
the Semites, that of the Beni-Israel was already marked 
for immense destinies. Ancient relations with Egypt, 
whence resulted perhaps some appropriations purely 
material, had only increased their repugnance to idol- 

* This word simply designates here those nations which speak or have spoken 
one of the languages called Semitic. Such a designation is very defective; but it 
is one of those words like " Gothic architecture" and " Arabic numerals" which 
we must preserve in order to be understood, even after the error which they 
imply has been demonstrated. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 55 

atry. A " Law " or Tliora^ written at a very remote 
period, upon metallic tables, and which they referred 
to their great liberator Moses, was already the code of 
monotheism, and contained, compared with the insti- 
tutions of Egypt and Chaldea, mighty germs of social 
equality and of morality. A chest, or portable ark, 
with rings on the sides through which to pass staves, 
constituted their entire religious materiel ; in it were 
collected the sacred objects of the nation, its relics, its 
memories, the "book" in fact,* the journal of the 
tribe always open, but in which they wrote with great 
discretion. The family entrusted with bearing the 
staves and watching over these portable archives, be- 
ing near the book and controlling it, very soon became 
important. Thence, however, did not come the insti- 
tution which decided the future ; the Hebrew priest 
does not differ much from other priests of antiquity. 
The characteristic which distinguishes Israel essential- 
ly among theocratic nations, is that its priests were al- 
ways subordinate to individual inspiration. Besides 
its priests, each nomadic tribe had its nabi or prophet, 
a species of living oracle which was consulted for the 
solution of obscure questions requiring a high degree 
of clairvoyance. The nabis of Israel, organized in 
groups or schools, had great ascendancy. Defenders 
of the ancient democratic spirit, enemies of the rich, 
opposed to all political organizations, and to whatever 
would lead Israel into the ways of other nations, they 
were the real instruments of the religious pre-eminence 
of the Jewish people. They early announced un- 
bounded hopes, and when the nation, the victim in 
part of their impolitic counsels, had been crushed by 

* lSain.,x,25. 



56 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the Assyrian power, they proclaimed that an unlimited 
kingdom was in reserve for them, that one day Jeru- 
salem would be the capital of the whole world, and 
that the human race would become Jewish. Jerusa- 
lem and its temple appeared to them like a city placed 
upon the summit of a mountain, towards which all na- 
tions must flow, like an oracle whence the law of the 
universe must emanate, like the center of an ideal realm, 
in which the human race, made peaceful by Israel, 
should taste again the joys of Eden.^ 

Unknown accents already made themselves heard 
in exaltation of the martyr, and in celebration of the 
power of the " man of sorrows." Concerning one of 
those sublime sufl'erers, who like Jeremiah, reddened 
with their blood the streets of Jerusalem, an inspired 
one wrote a canticle on the sufferings and the tri- 
umph of the " Servant of the Most High," in which all 
the prophetic power of the genius of Israel seems con- 
centrated.f '' He shall grow up before him as a ten- 
der plant, and as a root out of a dry ground : he hath 
no form nor comeliness ; and when we shall see him, 
there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is 
despised and rejected of men ; a man of sorrows and 
acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces 
from him ; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sor- 
rows : yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, 
and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgres- 
sions, he was bruised for our iniquities ; the chastise- 
ment of our peace was upon him ; and with his stripes 
we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray ; 

♦ Isaiah, n,l-4, and especially ch. xl seqq , lx seqq.; Micah iv, 1 seqq. It 
must be remembered that the second portion of the book of Isaiah, from ch. xt,, 
is not hj Isaiah. t Isa., lii, 13 eeqq. , and liii entire. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 57 

we have turned every one to his own way ; and the 
Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was 
oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his 
mouth : he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and 
as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened 
not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from 
judgment: and who shall declare his generation ? for 
he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the 
transgression of my people was he stricken. And he 
made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in 
his death ; because he had done no violence, neither 
was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord 
to bruise him ; he hath put him to grief; when thou 
shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his 
seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the 
Lord shall prosper in his hand." 

Great changes were at the same time going on in 
the Thora. E"ew texts, professing to present the true 
law of Moses, like Deuteronomy, were produced, and 
inaugurated in reality a spirit very different from that 
of tlie old nomads. An intense fanaticism was the 
dominant trait of this spirit. Insane believers inces- 
santly provoked assaults upon every one who strayed 
from the worship of Jehovah ; a code of blood, de- 
creeing the penalty of death for religious crimes, was 
successfully established. Piety almost always leads to 
strange contradictions of vehemence and gentleness. 
This zeal, unknown to the crude simplicity of the time 
of the Judges, inspires tones of moving exhortation 
and of tender unction, which the world had never 
heard till then. A strong tendency towards social 
questions began already to be felt ; Utopias, dreams of 
perfect society found place in the code. A mixture of 



58 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

patriarchal morality and ardent devotion, of primitive 
intuitions and pious refinements like those which filled 
the soul of a Hezekiah, a Josiah and a Jeremiah, the 
Pentateuch was thus fixed in the form in which we see 
it, and became for centuries the absolute rule of the 
national mind. 

This great book once created, the history of the 
Jewish people developed itself in an irresistible tide. 
The great empires which succeeded one another in 
"VYestern Asia, by destroying all its hope of a terres- 
trial kingdom, threw it back upon religious dreams 
with a kind of gloomy passion. Little caring for na- 
tional dynasty or political independence, it accepts all 
governments which leave it free to perform its wor- 
ship and to follow its usages. Israel henceforth shall 
have no other leadership than its religious enthusiasts, 
no other enemies than those of the divine unity, no 
other country than its Law. 

And this Law, it is important to remark, was wholly 
social and moral. It was the work of men imbued 
with a lofty ideal of the present life, and believing 
that they had found the best means of realizing it. 
The universal conviction is that the Thora^ well ob- 
served, cannot fail to give perfect happiness. This 
Thora has nothing in common with the Greek or Ro- 
man " Laws," which, taking small note of anything save 
abstract right, enter little into questions of happiness 
and of private morality. We perceive in advance that 
the results which are to flow from it will be of the so- 
cial order and not of the political order, that the work 
npon wliich this people is at labor, is a kingdom of 
God, not a civil republic, a universal institution, not a 
nationality or a country. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 59 

Througli many faintings by the way, Israel main* 
tained this vocation admirably. A succession of pious 
men, Esdras, Nehemiah, Onias, the Maccabees, eaten 
up with the zeal of the Law, upheld the defence of the 
ancient institutions. The idea that Israel is a nation 
of saints, a tribe chosen of Grod, and bound to him by 
a covenant, roots itself more and noore immovably. 
An immense expectation fills every soul. All Indo- 
European antiquity had placed Paradise at the begin- 
ning ; all its poets had wept a golden age departed. 
Israel placed the golden age in the future. The eter- 
nal poetry of religious souls, the Psalms, were born of 
this exalted pietism, with their divine and melancholy 
harmony. Israel became truly and pre-eminently the 
people of God, while about it the pagan religions be- 
came more and more degraded, in Persia and Babylo- 
nia to an official charlatanry, in Egypt and Syria to a 
crude idolatry, in the Greek and Latin world to pa- 
rades. What the Christian martyrs did in the first cen- 
turies of our era, what the victims of persecuting or- 
thodoxy did in the very bosom of Christianity up to 
our time, the Jews did during the two centuries which 
preceded the Christian era. They were a living protest 
against superstition and religious materialism. An 
extraordinary movement of ideas, ending in the most 
ojDposite results, made them at this period the most 
striking and the most original nation in the world. 
Their dispersion along the whole shore of the Mediter- 
ranean, and the use of the Greek language, which they 
adopted out of Palestine, prepared the way for a pro- 
paganda of which the ancient forms of society, cut up 
into small nationalities, had yet afi'orded no example. 

To the time of the Maccabees, Judaism, notwithstand- 



60 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

ing its persistence in announcing that it would one day 
be the religion of the human race, had had the char- 
acter of all the other worships of antiquity: it was a 
family worship, a tribe worship. The Israelite really 
thought that his worship was the best, and spoke with 
contempt of foreign gods. But he believed also that 
the religion of the true God was made for him alone. 
The worship of Jehovah was embraced on entering the 
Jewish family ; * that was all. 'No Israelite dreamed 
of converting other nations to a worship which was 
the patrimony of the sons of Abraham. The develop- 
ment of the pietist spirit, after Esdras and Nehemiah, 
led to a conception much more solid and more logical. 
Judaism became the true religion absolutely; the 
right to embrace it was accorded to all who desired ;f 
soon it became a pious woik to make as many converts 
as possible.:]: Undoubtedly the delicate feeling which 
raised John the Baptist, Jesus, and St. Paul above the 
mean ideas of race, did not yet exist ; by a singular 
contradiction, these converts (proselytes) found small 
consideration, and were treated with disdain. || But 
the idea of an exclusive religion, the idea that there is 
something in the w^orld superior to country, to blood, 
to laws, the idea which shall make the apostles and 
the martyrs, was founded. A deep pity for pagans, 
however splendid might be their mundane fortune, is 
henceforth the feeling of every Jew.§ By a cycle 
of legends, intended to furnish models of immova- 
ble firmness (Daniel and his companions, the mother 

* Ruth, 1, 16. t Esther, ix, 27. 

' t Matt, XXIII, 15; Josephus, Vita, 23; B. J, II, xvii, 10; VII, in, 3; Ant., XX, 
II, 4- Horat. , .S'ai. I, iv,143; Juv., xiv, 96 seqq.; Tacitus, Ann., II, 85; flwf., V,5; 
Dio Cassius, XXXVII, 17. 

8 Mischna, Schebiit, x, 9; Talmud of Babylon, Niddah, fol. 13 6, Jebatnoth, 47 b, 
Kidduschin, 70 ft; Midrasch, Jalkvi Ruth, fol. 163 d. 

Apocryphal letter of Baruch, in Fabricius, Cod. pseud. V. T. II, 147 scqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 61 

of the Maccabees and her seven sons,* the romance 
of the hippodrome of Alexandria),f the guides of the 
people sought above all to inculcate this idea that 
virtue consists in a fanatical attachment to determinate 
religious institutions. 

' The persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes made this 
idea a passion, almost a frenzy. It was something 
closely analogous to this which took place under ISTero, 
two hundred and thirty years afterwards. Rage and 
despair threw the faithful into the world of visions and 
of dreams, the first apocalypse, the " Book of Daniel," 
appeared. It was a sort of reproduction of prophet- 
ism, but under a very different form from the ancient, 
and with a much broader idea of the destinies of the 
world. The Book of Daniel gave in some sort their 
final expression to the Messianic expectations. The 
Messiah was no longer a king after the manner of Da- 
vid and Solomon, a theocratic and Mosaic Cyrus ; he 
was a " son of man " coming with the clouds of hea- 
ven, :j: a supernatural being, clothed in human appear- 
ance, commissioned to judge the world and to preside 
over the golden age. Perhaps the Sosiosch of Persia, 
the great prophet to come, commissioned to prepare the 
reign of Ormuzd, furnished some features to this new 
ideal. 1 The unknown author of the Book of Daniel 
had, at all events, a decisive influence upon the relig- 
ious event which was to transform the world. He 
furnished the scenic representation, and the technical 

* II Maccabees, vii, and the Z)eilfacca6cBis, attributed to Josephus. Of. Epistle 
to the Hebrews, xi, 33 seqq. 

III! Maccabees (apocr.); Rufin. Suppl. ad Jos., Gomira Jpionem, II, 5. 
VII, 13 seqq. 
Vendidad, xix,18,19; Minokhired, a passage published in the Zeitschrifi der 
deutschenmorgenlandischen Gesellschaff., I, 263; Boundehetich, xxxi The lack of any 
certain chronology of the Zend and Pehlvic texts leaves much doubt floating 
over these comparisons between Jewish and Persian belieft. 



62 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

terms of the new Messianism, and to liim may be ap 
plied what Jesus said of John the Baptist: The 
prophets were until John ; since that time the kingdom 
of God. 

We must not believe, however, that this movement, 
so profoundly religions and passionate, had for its 
moving spring particular dogmas, as has been the case 
in all the contests which have broken out in the bosom 
of Christianity. The Jew of this period was as little 
a theologian as possible. He did not speculate on 
the essence of the divinity ; the beliefs in regard to 
angels, the end of man, the divine personalities, the 
first germ of which already began to show itself, were 
optional beliefs, meditations to which every one might 
yield himself according to the cast of his mind, but of 
which a multitude of people had never heard. Indeed 
the most orthodox remained strangers to these pecu- 
liar notions, and held to the simplicity of Mosaism. 
'No dogmatic power analogous to that which orthodox 
Christianity conferred upon the church, then existed. 
IsTot until the third century, when Christianity fell into 
the hands of arguing races, insane for dialectics and 
metaphysics, did this fever of distinctions commence, 
which makes the history of the Churcli the history of 
an endless controversy. There was disputation also 
among the Jews ; zealous schools found contradictory 
solutions for nearly all agitated questions ; but in these 
contentions, the principal details of which the Talmud 
has preserved, there is not a word of speculative the- 
ology. To keep and maintain the law, because the 
law is just, and because when well kept, it gives hap- 
piness, this was the whole of Judaism. No credo, no 
theoretic symbol. A disciple of the boldest Arabic 



LIFE OF JESUS. 63 

philosophy, Moses Maimonides, could become the ora- 
cle of the synagogue, because he was a most rigid ob- 
server of the law. 

The reigns of the last Asmoneans and that of 
Herod saw the exaltation increase still more. They 
were filled with an uninterrupted series of religious 
movements. In proportion as the government became 
secularized and passed into unbelieving hands, the 
Jewish people lived le&s and less for earth and 
became more and more absorbed by the strange work 
which was being effected among them. The world, 
diverted by other spectacles, has no knowledge of 
what is passing in this forgotten corner of the East. 
Souls which keep pace with their century are, how- 
ever, better informed. The delicate and clairvoyant 
Yirgil seems to respond, as by a secret echo, to the 
second Isaiah ; the birth of a child throws him into 
dreams of universal regeneration.* These dreams 
were common and formed a style of literature, which 
was covered by the name of the Sibyls. The quite recent 
formation of the Empire exalted the imagination ; 
the grand era of peace upon which the world was 
entering, and that impress of melancholy sensibility, 
which souls experience after long periods of rev- 
olution, gave birth on every side to unlimited hopes. 

In Judea expectation was at its height. Holy per- 
sons, among whom are cited an aged Simeon, who 
according to the legend, held Jesus on his arms, and 
Anna, daughter of Phanuel, who was considered a 
prophetess,! passed their lives about the temple, 

* Eel. IV. The Oiimsum carmen (v. 4) was a kind of Sibylline apocalypse, 
stamped with the philosophy and history familiar to the East. See Servius oa 
this verse , and Ckirmina SibyUina, III, 97-817. Cf Tac , Hi^. , V , 13. 

t Luke, II, 25 seqq. 



64 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

fasting and praying that it might please God not to 
take them from the world until they had seen the ac- 
complishment of the hopes of Israel. A mighty 
incubation is felt, the imminence of something un- 
known. 

This confused medley of visions and dreams, this 
alternation of hopes and deceptions, these aspirations 
incessantly trampled down by a hateful reality, at 
length found their interpreter in the incomparable 
man to whom the universal conscience has decreed the 
title of Son of God, and that with justice, since he 
caused religion to take a step in advance incompar- 
ably greater than any other in the past, and probably 
than any yet to come. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 65 



CHAPTER II. 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH OF JESUS — HIS FIEST IM- 
PEESSIONS. '^ 

Jesus was born at Nazareth,* a small town in Gal- 
ilee, which before him had no celebritj.f All his 
life he was designated by the name of " E"azarene,"J 
and it is only by an awkward detour[ that the legend 
succeeds in fixing his birth at Betiilehem. We shall 
further on see§ the motive of this supposition and 

* Matt. , xm, 54 seqq. ; Mark, vi, 1 seqq. ; John i, 45, 46, 

\ It is not mentioned in the books of the Old Testament, or in Josephus or in 
the Talmud. 

I Mark, I, 24; Luke, xviii, 37; John,xix, 19; Ads, ii, 22; in, 6. Hence the 
name of Nazarenes, long applied to Christians, and which still designates them 
in all Mahometan countries. 

II The assessment made by Quirinius, with which the legend connects the 
journey to Bethlehem, is subsequent by at least ten years to the year when, ac- 
cording to Luke and Matthew, Jesus was born. The two evangelists indeed 
place his birth under the reign of Herod (Matt. , ii, 1, 19, 22; Luke, i, 6). Now 
the assessment of Quirinius was not until after the deposition of Archelaus, ten 
years alter the death of Herod, in the year 37 of the era of Actium (Josephus, 
AnL., XVII, XIII, 5; XVIII, i, 1; ii, 1). The inscription by which it was formerly 
attempted to show that Quirinius made two assessments is now known to be a 
forgery (see Orelli, Ins. lat. , No. 62.3, and the supplement of Henzen, same num- 
ber; Borghesi, Pastes consulaires [still unpublished], at the year 742). The assess- 
ment in any event would be applied only to the parts reduced to Roman 
provinces and not to the tetrarchies. The texts by which it is sought to prove 
that some of the statistical and registrary acts ordered by Augustus extended 
over the domain of the Herods, either do not imply what they are made to say, 
or are by Christian authors, who have borrowed this item from Luke's gospel. 
But what fully proves that the journey of the family of Jesus to Beth- 
lehem is unhistorical, is the reason which is given for it. Jesus was not 
of the family of David (see hereafter, 217), and, had he been, still we cannot 
conceive that his parents would have been compelled, for an act purely regis- 
trary and financial, to go to inscribe their names at a place their ancestors had 
left a thousand years before. By imposing such an obligation the Roman au- 
thority would have sanctioned claims full of danger to itselt 

k Ch XIV. 



66 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

how it was the necessary consequence of the Messianic 
character attributed to Jesus.* The precise date of 
his birth is unknown. It occurred under tlie reign of 
Augustas, towards the year 750 of Eome, probably 
some years before the year 1 of the era which all civ- 
ilized nations date from the day of his birth, f 

The name of Jesus^ which was given him, is a vari- 
ation of Joshua. It was a very common name ; but 
naturally mysteries were afterwards sought in it, and 
an allusion to his Saviorship.J Perhaps he himself, 
like all mystics, became exalted on this account. More 
than one great calling in history has thus been occa- 
sioned by a name casually given to a child. Ardent 
natures are never willing to see chance in anything 
that concerns them. For them all has been ordered 
by God, and they see a sign of the superior will in the 
most insignificant circumstances. 

The population of Galilee was diversified, as even 
the name of the country! indicated. This province 
* numbered among its inhabitants in the time of Jesus, 
many non-Jews (Phoenicians, Syrians, Arabs and even 
Greeks). § Conversions to Judaism were not rare in 
these mixed countries. It is impossible therefore to 

* Matt. , II, 1 seqq. ; Luke ii, 1 seqq. The omission of this story in Mark and 
the two parallel passages, Matt., xiir, 54, and Mark vi, 1, in which Nazareth 
figures as the " own country" of Jesus, prove that there was no such legend in 
the primitive text which furnished the historical sketch of the present gospels of 
Matthew and Mark. It is in consequence of oft-repeated objections that the 
modificationa at the beginning of Matthew would have been added, modifications 
not in such flagrant contradiction with the rest of the te.vt that it was thought 
necessary to correct those places which had been written previously from an en- 
tirely ditferent point of view. Luke, on the contrary (iv,16), writing with re- 
flection, uses, in order to be consistent, a modified expression. As to John, he 
knows nothing of the journey to Bethlehem ; to him, Jesus is simply " of Naza- 
reth" or a " Galilean" on two occasions when it would have been of the high- 
est importance to quote his birth at Bethlehem (i, 45, 46; it, 41, 4-^). 

t It is well known that the calculation which serves as the basis of the vulgar 
era was made in the sixth century by Dionysius the Little. This calculation is 
partly based on data which are purely hypothetical. 

t Matt., I, 21; Luke I, 31. 

I Gelil Hagffnyim, circle of the Gentiles. 

4 StrabOjXVI, n, 85; Jos., Vita, 12. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 67 

raise here any question of race and to inquire what 
blood flowed in the veins of him who has most contri- 
buted to efface in humanity all distinction of blood. 

He came' from the ranks of the people.* His 
father Joseph and his motlier Mary were in moderate 
circumstances, artizans living by their toil,f in this 
condition so common in the East, which is neither 
ease nor want. The extreme simplicity of life in such 
countries, by removing the demand for comfort, ren- 
ders the privilege of the rich almost useless and 
makes all voluntarily poor. On the other hand, the 
total lack of taste for the arts and for what contributes 
to the elegance of material life, gives to the houses 
of those who lack for nothing an appearance of pri- 
vation. With the exception of something sordid and 
repulsive which Islamism carries with it every where, 
the town of N'azareth, in the time of Jesus, did not, 
perhaps, differ much from what it is to-day.:]: We see 
the streets in which he played when a child, in these 
stony paths or these little squares which separate the 
dwellings. The house of Joseph without doubt close- 
ly resembled those poor shops, lighted by the door, 
serving at once for the work- bench, as kitchen and as 
bedroom, having for furniture a mat, some cushions 
on the ground, one or two earthen vessels and a painted 
chest. 

The family, whether the product of one or more 
marriages, was rather numerous. Jesus had brothers 

* The origin of the genealogies intended to connect him with the house of Da- 
vid will be explained hereafter (oh. xiv). The Ebionim suppressed them (Epiph., 
Adv. hcer., xxx, 14). 

tMatt., XIII, 55; Mark, vi, S; John, vi, 42. 
The ru.ie appearance of the ruins which cover Palestine proves that the 
towns which were not reconstructed in the Roman style, were very badly built. 
As to the form of these houses, it is, in Syria, so simple and so imperiously de*^ 
manded by the climate, that it could never have changed. 



68 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

and sisters,* who seem to have been younger than 
he.f All remained unknown; for it appears that the 
four persons who are given as his brothers, and among 
whom one at least, James, attained great importance 
in the first years of the development of Christianity, 
were his cousins german. Mary, indeed, had a sister 
named Mary also,f who married a certain Alpheus 
or Oleophas (these two names appear to designate 
the same person),] and was the mother of several sons 
who played a very considerable part among the first 
disciples of Jesus. His cousins german, who adhered 
to the young master, while his real brothers were 
opposed to him,§ assumed the title of "brothers of 
the Lord."T" The real brothers of Jesus, as well as 
their mother, had no importance until after his death.** 
Even then they do not appear to have equalled their 
cousins in consideration, whose conversion had been 

* Matt. , XII, 46 seqq. ; xiii, 55 seqq. ; Mark, iii, 31 seqq. ; vi, 3. Luke , vni, 19 
eeqq. ; John, ii, 12; vii, 3, 5, 10; Acts, 1. 14. 

t Matt. ,1,25. 

j That these two sisters bore the same name is a singular fact. Probably there 
is some mistake about it, arising from the habit of giving the Galilean women 
almost indiscriminately the name of Mary. 

y They are not etymologically identical. 'AXcpccToS is the transcription of 
the Syro-Chaldaic name Halphai; RXw-TTaj or KXsoV aj is a shortened form of 
KXeoVarfog^. But there may have been an artificial substitution of one for 
the other, as the Josephs called themselves " Hegesippus", the Eliakims " Alci 
mus", etc. 

6 John, vii, 3 seqq. 

f Indeed; the four persons who are given (Matt., xiii, 55; Mark, vi, 3) as sons 
of Mary, tlie mother of Jesus: James, Joseph or Joses, Simon and Juda, appear 
again, or nearly so, as the sons of Mary and Cleophas (Matt., xxvii, 56; Mark, 
XV, 40; Gal., 1,19] James, i, 1; Jude, 1; ^nseh., Chron., a.da,nn. R. -dcccx; Hist, 
eccl. , III, 11, 32; Cmstit. Apost. , VII, 46). The hypothesis which we have proposed 
alone relieves us from the enormous difficulty of supposing two sisters each hav- 
ing three or four sons bearing the same names, and admitting that James and 
Simon, the first two bishops of Jerusalem, called the " brothers of the Lord," 
were the real brothers of Jesus, who were hostile to him at first, but were after- 
wards converted. The evangelist, hearing these four sons called "brothers of 
the Lord," might have put, by mistake, their names in the passage, Matt , xin, 
55 = Mark, vi, 3, in place of the names of the real brothers, who still remained 
in obscurity. We may thus explain how the character of the persons called 
'< brothers of the Lord," of James for example, is so different from that of the 
real brothers of Jesus, as we see it drawn in John, vii, 3 seqq. The expression 
" brother of the Lord" evidently constituted in the primitive church a kind ot 
order something like that of the apostles. See especially I Cor. , ix, 5. 

♦* Acts, 1, 14. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 69 

more spontaneous, and whose character appears to have 
had more originality. Their names were unknown, to 
such a degree that when the evangelist puts in the 
mouth of the people of Nazareth the enumeration of 
the natural brothers, it is the names of the sons of 
Cleophas which are immediately presented to his mind. 
His sisters married at ISTazareth,* and there he spent 
his early years. Kazareth was a little town, situated 
in a fold of land broadly open at the summit of the group 
of mountains which closes on the north the plain of Ea- 
draelon. The population is now from three to four thou- 
sand and it cannot have varied very much.f It is quite 
cold in winter and the climate is very healthy. The 
town, like all the Jewish villages of the time, was a 
mass of dwellings built without pretensions to style, 
and must have presented that poor and uninteresting 
appearance which is offered by villages in Semitic 
countries. The houses, from all that appears, did not 
differ much from those cubes of stone, without interior 
or exterior elegance, which now cover the richest por- 
tion of the Lebanon, and which in the midst of vines 
and fig-trees, are nevertheless very pleasant. The en- 
virons, moreover, are charming, and no place in the 
world was so well adapted to dreams of absolute happi- 
ness. Even in our days, Nazareth is a delightful so- 
journ, the only place perhaps in Palestine where the 
soul feels a little relieved of the burden which weighs 
upon it in the midst of this unequalled desolation. 
The people are friendly and good-natured; the gar- 
dens are fresh and green. Antoninus Martyr, at the 

* Mark, vi, 3. 

t According to Josephus {B. J. Ill, in. 2), the smallest village in Galilee had 
more than five thousand inhabitants. 1'here is probably in thia some exaggera- 

tiOIL 



70 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

end of the sixtli century draws an enchanting picture 
of the fertility of the environs, which he compares to 
paradise.* Some valleys on the western side fully 
justify his description. The fountain about which the 
life and gayety of the little town formerly centered, 
has been destroyed ; its broken channels now give but 
a turbid water. But the beauty of the women who 
gather there at night, this beauty which was already 
remarked in the sixth century, and in which was seen 
the gift of the Yirgin Mary,f has been surprisingly 
well preserved. It is the Syrian type in all its lan- 
guishing grace. There is no doubt that Mary was 
there nearly ever^ day and took her place, with her 
urn upon her shoulder, in the same line with her un- 
remembered countrywomen. Antoninus Martyr re- 
marks that the Jewish women, elsewhere disdainful 
to Christians, are here full of affability. Even at this 
day, religious animosities are less intense at J^azareth 
than elsewhere. 

The horizon of the town is limited, but if we ascend 
a little to the plateau swept by a perpetual breeze, 
which commands the highest houses, the prospect is 
splendid. To the west are unfolded the beautiful lines 
of Carmel, terminating in an abrupt point which 
seems to plunge into the sea. Then stretch away the 
double summit which looks down upon Megiddo, the 
mountains of the country of Shechem with their holy 
places of the patriarchal age, the mountains of Gil- 
boa, the picturesque little group with which are as 
Bociated the graceful and terrible memories of Solam 
and of Endor, andThabor with its finely-ronnded form, 
Vv'hich antiquity compared to a breast. Through a de- 

* Itiim-., {; f). t Antoninus Martyr, loc. cit. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 71 

pression between the mountains of Solam and Thabor, 
are seen the valley of the Jordan and the high plains 
of Persea which form a continuous line in the east. To 
the north, the mountains of Safed, sloping towards the 
sea, hide St. Jean d'Acre, but disclose the gulf of 
Khaifa. Such was the horizon of Jesus. This enchant- 
ed circle, the cradle of the kingdom of God, repre- 
sented the world to him for years. His life even went 
little beyond the limits familiar to his childhood. For, 
beyond, to the north, you almost see upon the slope 
of Hermon, Cesarea Philippi, his most advanced point 
into the Gentile world, and to the south, you feel be- 
hind these already less cheerful mountains of Samaria, 
sad Judea, withered as by a burning blast of abstrac- 
tion and of death. 

If ever the world still Christian, but having attained 
a better idea of what constitutes respect for origins, 
shall desire to substitute authentic holy places for the 
mean and apocryphal sanctuaries which were seized up- 
on by the piety of the barbarous ages, it is upon this 
height of Kazareth that it will build its temple. 
There, at the point of advent of Christianity, and at 
the centre of action of its founder, should rise the 
great church in which all Christians might pray. 
There also, upon this soil in which sleep Joseph the 
carpenter, and thousands of forgotten Nazarenes, who 
have never crossed the horizon of their valley, the 
philosopher would be better situated than in any other 
place in the world, to contemplate the course of hu- 
man things, to find consolation for their uncertainty, 
to find faith in the divine object which the world pur- 
sues through innumerable dejections, and notwith- 
standing the vanity of all things. 



72 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER III. 



EDUCATION OF JBSFS 



This nature at once smiling and grand, was tlie 
whole education of Jesus. He learned to read and 
write,* doubtless according to the method of the 
East, which consists in putting into the hands of the 
child a book, that he repeats in concert with his little 
school-fellows until he knows it bj heart, f It is 
doubtful, however, whether he really understood the 
Hebrew writings in their original tongue. The biog- 
raphies make him quote from them in the Aramaean 
tongue ; his principles of exegesis, as nearly as we can 
make them out from those of his disciples, closely re- 
sembled those which were current at that time,:j: and 
which compose the spirit of the Targums and the 
Midraschim.% 

The school-master in the little Jewish towns was the 
hazzan^ or reader of the synagogue.! Jesus attended 
little upon the higher schools of the scribes or soferim^ 
(Nazareth perhaps had none), and he had none of 
those titles which confer in the eyes of the common 
people the privileges of learning.^ It would be a 

* John, VIII, 6. f Tistam. des douze Pair. Levi, 6. 

X Matt., XXVII, 46; Mark, xv, 34. 

5> Jewish translations and commentarieB of the Talmudic epoch. 

I Mischna, SchabbaLk, i, 3. Y Matt., xiii, 54 aeqq. ; John, vii, 15. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 73 

great mistake, however, to suppose that Jesus was 
what we call illiterate. The education of the schools 
marks among us a wide distinction, in the relation of 
personal worth, between those who have received it 
and those who have been deprived of it. It was not 
thus in the East, nor generally in the good old ages. 
The crude condition in which, among us, in conse- 
quence of our isolated and entirely individual life, he 
remains, who lias not been to the schools, is unknown 
in these forms of society where moral culture and es- 
pecially the general spirit of the time are transmitted 
by perpetual contact with men. The Arab, who has 
had no school-master, is often highly distinguished 
nevertheless ; for the tent is a kind of school always 
open, where the meeting of well-bred people gives 
birth to a great intellectual and even literary move- 
ment. Delicacy of manners and acuteness of mind 
have nothing in common in the East with what we 
call education. On the contrary, the school men are 
considered pedantic and ill-bred. In this state of so- 
ciety, ignorance, which among us condemns a man to 
an inferior rank, is the condition of great deeds and of 
great originality. 

It is not probable that he knew Greek. This lan- 
guage was little known in Judea beyond the classes 
which participated in the government of the towns in- 
habited by pagans, like Cesarea.* The native idiom 
of Jesus was the Syriac dialect mixed with He- 
brew, which was then spoken in Palestine.f Still less 

* 'M.ischna., .Schekalim, iii, 2; Talmud of Jerusalem, MegiUa, halaca xi; Sota, viii, 
1; Talmud of Babylon, Baba Kama, 83 a; MegiUa, 8 b seqq. 

f Matt., XXVII, 46; Mark, iii, 17; v, 41; vii, 34; xiv, 36; xv, 34. The expression 
Yj <ifaT^iog (pwvT), in the writers of this time, always designates the Semitic dia- 
lect which was spoken in Palestine (II Mac, vii, 21, 27; xn, 37; Acts, xxi,37, 
40; xxii 2; xxvi, 14; Josephus, Ant, XYIIl, vi, 10; XX, sub. Jin.; B. J. procem. 1- 



74 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

had he any knowledge of Greek culture. This culture 
was proscribed by the Palestinian doctors, who united 
in the same malediction ^' he who breeds swine and 
he who teaches his son the wisdom of the Greeks."* 
At all events, it had not penetrated into little towns 
like Nazareth. Notwithstanding the anathema of the 
doctors, it is true, some Jews had already embraced 
the Hellenic culture. Not to speak of the Jewish 
school of Egypt, in which attempts to amalgamate 
Hellenism and Judaism had been continued for nearly 
two hundred years, Nicholas of Damascus had become 
at this very time^ one of the most distinguished, most 
learned and most honored men of his age. Very soon 
Josephus was to iurnish another example of a Jew 
completely Hellenized. But Nicholas was Jewish in 
nothing but race; Josephus declares that he was an 
exception aniong his cotemporaries,f and the whole 
schismatic school of Egypt had so completely de- 
tached itself from Jerusalem, that no mention of it is 
found either in the Talmud or in Jewish tradition. It 
is certain that at Jerusalem Greek was very little stu- 
died, that Greek studies were considered dangerous 
and even servile ; that they were declared good at 
most as an ornament for women. ;[: The study of the 
Law alone was considered liberal and worthy of a 
serious man.[ A learned rabbi, when asked at what 

V, VI, 3; V, IX, 2; VI, 11,1; Contra Apion., I, Q; De Macch., 12, 16). We sfcall show 
hereafter that some of the documents which served as a basis for the synoptic 
evangelists vfere written in this Semitic dialect. The same was the case with 
several of the apocryphal books (IV Mac, ad calcem, etc.)- In short, the Chris- 
tian community which issued directly from the first Galilean movement (Naza- 
renes, EUonim, etc.), which long continued in Batanea and Haouran, spoke a 
Semitic dialect (Eusebius, De situ d nomin -loc. hebr. , at the word Xw,/3a; Epiph. 
Adv. ?<fer.,xxix,7,9;xxx,3;St. Jerome, In Matth., xii, 13; Dial. adv. Pelag., Ill, 2). 

* Mischna, Sanhedrin,yii,l; Talmud of Babylon, Ba^a Kama, 82 6 and 83 a; 
Sola, 49, a and b; Menachoth, 64 b; Comp. II, Mac. , iv, 10 seqq. 

+ Jos., Ant. , XX, XI, 2. t' Talmud of Jerusalem, Peak, i, 1. 

I Jos., Ant., loc. cit. ; Grig., Conira Cdsum, II, 34. 



LIFE OP JESUS. Y5 

time it was proper to teach children " the wisdom of 
the Greeks," answered : " At the hour which is neither 
day nor night, for it is written of the Law : Thou shalt 
study it day and night."* 

E'either directly nor indirectly, therefore, did any 
element of Hellenic culture make its way to Jesus. 
He knew nothing beyond Judaism, his mind pre- 
served this frank simplicity which is always enfeebled 
by an extensive and varied culture. In the very bo- 
som of Judaism, he was still a stranger to many efforts 
some of which were parallel to his own. On one hand, 
the asceticism of the Essenes, or Therapeutes,f on the 
other, the fine essays in religious philosophy, made by 
the Jewish school of Alexandria, and ingeniously in- 
terpreted by Fhilo, his cotemporary, were to him un- 
known. The frequent resemblances which we find 
between him and Philo, those excellent maxims of the 
love of God, of charity, of rest in God,:): which seem 
an echo between the Gospel and the writings of the 
illustrious Alexandrian thinker, come from the com- 
mon tendencies which the demands of the age inspired 
in all elevated souls. 

Happily for him, he knew no more of the grotesque 
scholasticism which was taught at Jerusalem, and 
which was soon to constitute the Talmud. If a few 
Pharisees had already brought it to Galilee, he did 
not attend upon them, and when he afterwards came 
in contact with this silly casuistry, it inspired in him 
nothing but disgust. We may suppose, however, that 

* Talmud of Jerusalem, Peak, i, 1; Talmud of Babylon, Menachoth, 99 6. 

f The Therapevtes of Philo are a branch of the Essenes. Their name 
even appears to be only a Greek translation of that of the Essenes (JEtfCam, 
asouya, " physicians"). Of Philo, De Vita contempl. init. 

X See especially the treatises Quis rerwm dimnantm hceres sit andDe PhilarUlaxmia 
ofPhUo. ^^ 



■{ 



76 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

tlie principles of Hillel were not unknown to him. 
Ilillel, fifty years before him, had pronounced aphor- 
isms closely analogous to his. By his poverty endured 
with humility, by the sweetness of his character, by 
the opposition which he made to the hypocrites and 
priests, Hillel was the real teacher of Jesus,* if we may 
say teacher when speaking of so lofty an originality . y 

The reading of the books of the Old Testament pro- 
duced upon him much greater impression. The canon 
of the sacred books was composed of two principal 
parts — the Law, that is, the Pentateuch, and the 
Prophets as we now possess them. A vast allegorical 
exegesis was applied to all these books, and sought to 
extract what is not in them, but what responded to 
the aspirations of the time. The Law, which repre- 
sented, not the ancient laws of the country, but rather 
Utopias, the factitious laws and the pious frauds of the 
time of the pietistic kings, had become, since the na- 
tion had ceased to govern itself, an inexhaustible 
theme of subtle interpretations. As to the prophets 
and psalms, they were persuaded that nearly all the 
allusions in these books which were even slightly mys- 
terious, related to the Messiah, and they sought in ad- 
vance the type of him who was to realize the hopes of 
the nation. Jesus shared the universal taste for these 
allegorical interpretations. But the real poetr}^ of the 
Bible, which was lost to the puerile expositors of Je- 
rusalem, was fully revealed to his exquisite genius. 
The Law appears to have had for him but little 
charm ; he thought he could do better. But 
the religious poetry of the psalms was in won- 

* Pirlce AbciTi ch. i and n; Talm. of Jerns. , PesaaMmf vi, 1; Talin. of Bab., Pa 
ocAim, 66 a; SchaHbath, 30 b and 31 a; Joma, 86 b. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 77 

derful harmony with his Ijrical soul ; all his life 
they were his sustenance and bis support. The proph- 
ets, Isaiah in particular and his continuatorof tlie time 
of tJie captivity, with their splendid dreams of the fu- 
ture, their impetuous eloquence and their invectives 
intermingled with enchanting pictures, were his real 
teachers. Undoubtedly he read also many modern 
writings, whose authors, to gain an authority now ac- 
corded only to very ancient writings, hid themselves 
beneath the names of prophets and patriarchs. One of 
these books made a deep impression upon him, the 
book of Daniel. This book, composed by an exalted 
Jew of the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, and placed 
by him under the shelter of an ancient sage,* was the 
summing up of the spirit of the latter days. Its au- 
thor, the real creator of the philosophyof history, for 
the first time dared to see in the movement of the 
world, and the succession of empires, merely a func- 
tion subordinate to the destiny of the Jewish people. 
Jesus was at an early period thrilled by these lofty 
hopes. Perhaps also, he read the books of Enoch, 
then revered equally with the sacred books,f and the 
other writings of the same kind, which upheld so 
great a movement in the popular imagination. The 
advent of the Messiah with his glories and his ter- 
rors, the nations dashing one against another, the cata- 
clysm of heaven and earth, were the familiar food of 
his imagination, and as these revolutions were thought 

* The legend of Daniel was already formed in the seventh century B. C. (Eze-^ 
kielxiv, I4seqq.;xxvm, 3^. It was for the necessities of the legend that he was 
made to live in the time of the Babylonish captivity, 

t Judejliseqq. II Fetri, u,^,l\: Testam.des dome Pair., Simeon, 5; Levi, 14, 
16: Juda, 18; Zab. 3. ; Dan. 5; Nephtali, 4. The " Book of Enoch" still forma an 
integral portion of the Ethiopian Bible. As it has come to us in the Ethiopian 
version, it is composed of pieces of different dates, the oldest of which are of the 
year 130 or 150 B. C. Some of the pieces are analagoua to the discourses of Je- 
108. Compare ch. xcvi-xcix with Luke, vi, 24 seqq. 



78 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

to be at hand, so that a multitude of people were 
seeking to compute their times, the supernatural order 
of things into which such visions transport us, appear- 
ed to him from the first perfectly simple and natural. 
That he had no knowledge of the general condition 
of the world may be learned from every line of his 
most authentic discourses. The earth to him appears 
still to be divided into kino^doms which are at war ; he 
seems to be ignorant of the '' Eoman peace," and the 
new state of society which his century inaugurated. 
He had no precise idea of the Roman power ; the name 
of "Csesar" alone had reached him. He saw the building, 
in Galilee or its environs, of Tiberias, Julias, Diocesarea 
and Cesarea, pompons works of the Herods who sought 
by these magnificent constructions, to prove their ad- 
miration for Roman civilization and their devotion to 
the members of the family of Augustus, whose names 
by a freak of fate, serve to-day, grotesquely mutilated, 
to designate the wretched hamlets of the Bedouins. 
Probably he saw also Sebaste, the work of Herod the 
Great, a gala city, whose ruins would lead to the be- 
lief that it was brought ready made, like a piece of 
mechanism which had only to be set up in its place. 
This ostentatious architecture, which arrived in Judea 
by cargoes, these hundreds of columns all of the 
same diameter, the ornament of some insipid " Rue 
de Rivoli," such is what he called " the kingdoms of 
the world and all their glory." But this luxury of 
power,, this govermtntal and official art was displeasing 
to him. What he loved was his Galilean villages, 
confused medleys of cabins, of threshing-floors and 
wine- presses cut in the rock, of wells and tombs, of 
fig and olive trees. He always continued near to na- 



LIFE OF JESUS. 79 

ture. The court of the kings seemed to him a place 
where people wear fine clothes.* The charming im- 
possibilities with which his parables swarm, when he 
puts kings and mighty men upon the scene, f proves 
that he had no conception of aristocratic society save 
that of a young villager who sees the world through 
the prism of his own simplicity. 

Still less was he acquainted with the new idea, 
created by Greek science, which is the basis of all 
philosophy and which modern science has fully con- 
firmed, the exclusion of the capricious gods to whom 
the early faith of the ancient ages attributed the gov> 
ernment of the universe. ISTearly a century before 
him Lucretius had given admirable expression to the 
inflexibility of the general regime of nature. The 
negation of miracle, this idea that everything is pro- 
duced in the world by laws in which the personal in- 
tervention of superior beings has no share, was the 
common law in the great schools of all countries 
which had received Greek science. Perhaps even 
Babylon and Persia were not strangers to it. Jesus 
knew nothing of this advance. Though born at a 
time when the principle of positive science had al- 
ready been proclaimed, he lived in the midst of the 
supernatural. Kever perhaps had the Jews been 
more devoured by the thirst of the marvellous. Philo, 
who lived in a great intellectual centre, and who had 
received a very complete education, has only a false 
chimerical science. 

Jesus differed in this point in no wise from his coun- 
trymen. He believed in the devil whom he looked 
upon as a sort of genius of evil,:j: and imagined, with 

* Matt., jci, 8. f See, for example, Matt, xxu, 2 seqq. J Matt., vi, 13. 



80 OIlIGIx\S OF CHRISTIANITY. 

every other, that nervous diseases were the work of 
demons, who took possession of the patient and tor- 
mented him To him the marvellous was not the ex- 
ceptional ; it was the moral condition. The idea of 
the supernatural with its impossibilities, was not con- 
ceived until the day when the experimental science 
of nature was discovered. The man who is a stranger 
to all notion of phj-sics, who believes that by a prayer 
he changes the course of the clouds, controls disease 
and even death itself, sees nothing extraordinary in 
miracle, since the wliole course of things is to him the 
result of the free volitions of divinity. This intellec- 
tual state was always tluit of Jesus. But in his great 
soul such a faith produced effects entirely different 
from those which it produced upon the multitude. With 
the multitude, faith in the special action of God led to 
a silly credulity and to the deceptions of charlatans. 
To him it gave a deep idea of the familiar relations 
of man with God and an exaggerated faith in the 
might of man ; admirable errors which were the prin- 
ciple of his power; for if they were one day to put 
him to the fault in the eyes of the physicist and the 
chemist, they gave him a power over his time which no 
individual ever wielded before or since. 

Early in life his peculiar character revealed itself. 
Tradition delights in showing him even when a 
child in rebellion against the paternal authority and 
leaving the common track to follow his calling.* It is 
certain at least that the relations of kindred were lit- 
tle to him. His family seems not to have loved hiTn,f 

♦ Luke, u, 42 scqq. The apocryphal gospels are full of such storiea carried to 
the grotesque. 
t Matt. , xm, 67; Mark, vi, 4; John vu, 3 seqq See hereafter, page 163, note d 



LIFE OF JESUS. 81 

and at times, we j&nd him harsh towards them.* Jesus, 
like all men exclusively absorbed in an idea, came to 
make small account of ties of blood. The bond of 
the idea is the only one which such natures recognize. 
" Behold my mother and my brethren," said he stretch- 
ing forth his hand towards his disciples ; " whosoever 
shall do the will of my father, the same is my brother 
and my sister." The simple people did not understand 
him thus, and one day a woman, passing by him, ex- 
claimed, it is said : " Blessed the womb that bare thee, 
and the paps that gave thee suck !" " Blessed rather," 
he answered, " they that hear the word of God and 
keep it."f Soon, in his daring revolt against nature, he 
was to go still farther, and we shall see him tramp- 
ling under his feet all that is human, kindred, love, coun- 
try, devoting heart and soul only to the idea which 
appeared to him as the absolute form of the good and 
the true. 

* Matt., xu, 48; Mark, ui, 33; Luke, viil, 21; John, u, 4; Gospel according to the 
Hebrews, in St. Jerome, DUd. adv. Felag., Ill, 2. 
t Luke, XI, 27 seqq. . 



82 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER lY. 

OEDKR OF IDEAS AMID WHICH JESUS WAS DEVBLOPEB. 

As the cooled earth permits us no longer to compre- 
hend the phenomena of the primitive creation, because 
the fire which pervaded it is extinguished, so the ex- 
planations of reason are always insufficient in some 
respect, when we apply our timid processes of induc- 
tion to the revolutions of those creative epochs which 
have decided the destiny of the human race. Jesus 
lived in one of those periods when the part of public 
life is played with freedom, when the stakes of human 
activity are centupled. Every grand life, then, in- 
sures death ; for such movements presuppose a liberty 
and an absence of preventive measures, which cannot 
exist without a terrible counterpoise. Now, man risks 
little and wins little. In the heroic ages of human ac- 
tivity man risked all and won all. The good and the 
bad, or at least those who considered themselves and 
were considered such, form opposing armies. By the 
scaffold lies the path to apotheosis ; grand characters 
have incriminated traits which engrave tliem as eter- 
nal types in tiie memory of men. If we except the 
French Revolution, no historic medium was so fitting 
as that in which Jesus was formed, to develop those 



LIFE OF JESUS. 83 

hidden powers which humanity holds as if in reserve, 
and which she never reveals except in her days of fever 
and of danger. 

If the government of the world were a speculative 
problem, and the greatest philosopher were the man 
best fitted to tell his fellows what they should believe, 
then fiom calmness and reflection would spring those 
grand moral and doctrinal rules which are called reli- 
gions. But it is not so. If we except Sakya-Mouni, 
the great religious founders have not been metaphysi- 
cians. Buddhism itself, although the product of pure 
thought, conquered half of Europe for reasons entirely 
political and moral. As to the Semitic religions, they 
are as little philosophic as possible. Moses and Ma- 
homet were never given to speculation ; they were men 
of action. It was by proposing action to their coun- 
trymen, their cotemporaries, that they mastered hu- 
manity. Jesus, likewise, was no theologilin, no phi- 
losopher with a system more or less admirable. To be 
a disciple of Jesus, it was necessary to sign no formu- 
la, to pronounce no profession of faith; but a single 
thing was necessary, to follow him, to love him. He 
never argued in relation to God, for he felt him direct- 
ly within himself. The shoal of metaphysical subtle- 
ties upon which Christianity struck in the third centu- 
ry, was in no wise the work of the founder. Jesus had 
neither dogmas nor system, but a fixed personal re- 
solve, which, having surpassed in intensity every oth- 
er created will, directs even to this hour the destinies 
of humanity. 

The Jewish people had the advantage, from the Ba- 
bylonish captivity to the middle ages, of being always 
in a very intense condition. This is why the deposita- 



84 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

ries of the national spirit, during this long period, 
seem to write under the action of a high fever, which 
places them continually above and beneath reason, 
rarely in its medium path. E'ever had man seized 
upon the problem of the future and of his destiny 
with a courage more desperate, more determined to 
rush to extremes. Making no separation of the fate 
of humanity from that of their little race, the Jewish 
thinkers are the first who cared for a general theory 
of the progress of our species. Greece, always shut 
up in herself, and mindful only of the quarrels of her 
little towns, had admirable historians; but before the 
Roman epoch, we may search Greece in vain for a gene- 
ral system of historical philosophy, embracing all hu- 
manity. The Jew, on the contrary, thanks to a kind 
of prophetic sense which at times renders the Semite 
marvellously apt to see the grand outlines of the fu- 
ture, carried history into religion. Perhaps he owes 
a little of this spirit to Persia. Persia, from a remote 
epoch, conceived the history of the world as a series 
of evolutions, over which a prophet presides. Each 
prophet has his hazar, or reign of a thousand years, 
(chiliasm), and of these successive ages, analogous to* 
the millions of centuries of each buddha of India, is 
the woof of events composed which prepares for the 
reign of Ormuzd. At the end of time, when the circle 
of chiliasms shall be exhausted, will come the final pa- 
radise. Men will then live happy ; the earth will be 
like a plain ; there will be but one language, one law, 
and one government for all men. But this advent 
will be preceded by terrible calamities. Dahak (the 
Satan of Persia) will break the chains which bind him 
and will fall upon the world. Two prophets will come 



LIFE OF JESUS. 85 

to console men and to prepare for the grand advent.* 
These ideas made their way over the world and pene- 
trated even to Kome, where they inspired a cycle of 
prophetic poems, the fundamental ideas of which were 
the division of the history of humanity into periods, 
the succession of the gods corresponding to these pe- 
riods, a complete renewal of the world, and the final 
advent of the golden age.f The book of Daniel, the 
book of Enoch, and certain portions of the Sibylline 
books,:!: are the Jewish expression of the same theory. 
It is true that these were not the thoughts of all. They 
were embraced at first only by a few persons of lively 
imagination and inclined to foreign doctrines. The 
arid and narrow-minded author of the book of Esther 
never thought of the rest of the world except with 
feelings of malevolence and disdain. § The disabused 
epicurean who wrote Ecclesiastes, thinks so little of 
the future that he considers it useless even to labor for 
his children ; in the eyes of this egotistic bachelor the 
final word of wisdom is to spend as you go.|| But the 
great deeds of a nation are usually done by the minority. 
With its enormous faults, harsh, egotistic, sneering, 
cruel, narrow, subtle, sophistical, the Jewish nation is 
still the author of the finest movement of disinterested 
enthusiasm in all history. The opposition always cre- 
ates the glory of a country. (The greatest men of a 
nation are those which it puts to death. , Socrates cre- 
ated the glory of Athens, who deemed that she could 
not live with him. Spinoza is the greatest of modern 

* Yacna, xui, 24; Theopompus, in Plut. , De hide et Osiride, § 47 ; Minokhired, pas- 
eage published in the ZeUschnftder Deutschenmorgenlandischen Gesellschaft, I, p. 263. 

t Virg., Ecl.av; Sei-vius, on v. 4 of this eclogue; Nigidius, cited by Servius, 
on V 10. X Book III, 97-817. 

^ VI, 13; vn; 10; vin,7, 11-17; ix,l-22; andia the apocryphal portions: ix, 10,11; 
XIV, 13 seqq. ; xvi, 20, 24. 

li Eccl.,1, ll;u,16,18-24;iii,19-22;iv,8,15,16;v,17,18;vi,3,6;vill,15;ix,9,10. 



8Q ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Jews, and the synagogue expelled him with ignominy. 
Jesus was the glory of the people of Israel, who cruci- 
fied liim. 

A gigantic dream for centuries had pursued the 
Jewish people, and renewed it continually in its de- 
crepitude. A stranger to the theory of individual re- 
compense, which Greece had disseminated under the 
name of the immortality of the soul, Judea had con- 
centrated upon her national future all her power to 
love and to desire. She believed that she had the di- 
vine promise of a limitless future, and as the bitter re- 
ality, which, from the ninth century before our era, 
gave the kingdom of the world more. and more to force, 
brutally trampled down these aspirations, she threw 
herself upon the most impossible alliances of ideas, and 
attempted the strangest expedients. Before the cap- 
tivity, when all the earthly future of the nation was 
dissipated by the separation of the northern tribes, 
they dreamed of the restoration of the house of David, 
the reconciliation of the two fragments of the people, 
and the triumph of theocracy and the worship of Je- 
liovah over the idolatrous worships. At the time of 
the captivity, a poet, full of harmony, saw the splen- 
dor of a future Jerusalem, to which the nations and 
the far-ofi* isles should be tributary, in colors so soft 
that one would have said that a ray from the beaming 
face of Jesus illumined it at a distance of six hundred 
years.* 

The victory of Cyrus seemed for a time to realize all 
that had been hoped. The grave disciples of the 
Avesta and the worshippers of Jehovah believed theni- 
selves brothers. Persia had succeeded, by banishing 

* Isaiah, i,x, etc. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 87 

the mnltitudinous devas and transforming them into 
demons {divs\ in drawing from the ancient Arian con- 
ceptions, essentially naturalistic, a species of monothe- 
ism. The prophetic tone of many of the precepts of 
Iran had close analogy to certain compositions of Ro- 
sea and Isaiah. Israel rested under the Acbsemenides,"^ 
and, under Xerxes (Ahasuerus), made himself feared 
by the Iranians themselves. But the triumphal and 
often brutal entrance of the Greek and Roman civili- 
zation into Asia, threw him back into his dreams. 
More than ever, he invoked the Messiah as judge and 
avenger of the nations. He required a renewal of all 
things, a revolution taking the globe by the roots and 
shaking it from top to bottom, to satisfy the enormous 
demand which was excited in him by the feeling of 
his superiority and the sight of his humiliations.f 

Had Israel possessed the doctrine, termed spiritual- 
istic, which separates man into two parts, body and 
soul, and thinks it perfectly natural that while the 
body rots, the soul survives, this storm of rage and 
energetic protest would have had no cause for exis- 
tence. But this doctrine, sprung from Greek philoso- 
phy, was not in the traditions of the Jewish mind. The 
ancient Hebrew writings contain no .trace of future re- 
wards or punishments. While the idea of the solida- 
rity of the tribe existed, it was natural not to look for 
strict retribution according to the merits of each per- 
son. Wo to the pious man who fell upon an impious 
age ; he suffered with the rest the public calamities 
flowing from the general impiety. This doctrine, 
handed down from the wise men of the patriarchal pe- 
riod, resulted every day in indefensible contradictions. 

* The whole book of Esther breathes a spirit of strong attachment to this 
dynasty, 
t Apooryphal letter of Baruch, in Fabricius, Cod. pseud. V.T.yll p. 147 seqq. 



S8 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Even in the time of Job it was severely shaken ; the 
old men of Teman who professed it were men behind 
the times, and the young 51ihu, who comes in to op- 
pose them, dares to put forth first of all this essentially 
revolutionary idea : wisdom is no longer to the aged.* 
With the complications which the world had assumed 
since Alexander, the old Temanite and Mosaic princi- 
ple became still more intolerable.f J^ever had Israel 
been more faithful to the Law, and yet they had suf- 
fered the atrocious persecutions of Antiochus. Only a 
declaimer, accustomed to repeat ancient phrases de- 
nuded of meaning, dared profess that these woes came 
because of the unfaithfulness of the people. :j: What! 
these victims who died for their faith, these heroic 
Maccabees, this mother with her seven sons, shall Je- 
hovah forget them eternally, abandon them to the cor- 
ruption of the grave ? || An incredulous and worldly 
Sadducee, indeed, might not shrink before such a result ; 
a consummate sage, like Antigonus de Soco,§ indeed, 
might maintain that we must not practice virtue like 
a slave for a reward, that we must be virtuous without 
expectation. But the mass of the nation could not be 
satisfied with that. Some, cleaving to the principle of 
philosophic immortality, pictured to themselves the 
just living in the memory of God, glorious forever in 
the remembrance of men, judging the impious who have 
persecuted them.T" "They live in the eyes of 

* Jobjxxxu, 9. 

t It is remarkable however that Jesus, son of Sirach, adheres to it strictly 
(xvu, 23-28; xxil, 10, 11; xxx, 4 seqq. ; xli, 1,2; XLiv, 9). The author of Wisdom 
is of an entirely different opinion (iv. 1, Greek text). 

X Est., xiv, 6, 7 (apocr ); Apocryphal Epistle of Baruch (Fabricius, Cod. pseud 
V. T. II, p. 147 seqq.) • II I^i Mace. , vii. § Pirke Aboth. , i, 3. 

Jf Wisdom, ch. ii-vi; De rationis imperio, attributed to Josephus, 8,13,16,18. 
Still we must remark that the author ot this last treatise gives the motive of per- 
sonal remuneration only the second place. The principal motive of the martyrs 
is the pure love of the Law, the advantage which their death will bring to the 
people and the glory which will be attached to their name. Comp. Wisdom, iv, 
1 seqq.; Eccl.,XLiv seqq.; Jos. B. J, II, viii, 10;III, viii, 5. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 89 

God ;"* such is their recompense. Others, the Phari- 
sees especially, had recourse to the dogma of the 
resurrection. f The just will live again to share in the 
Messianic reign. They will live again in the flesh, 
and for a world of which they will be the kings and 
judges ; they will witness the triumph of their ideas 
and the humiliation of their enemies. 

We find among the ancient people of Israel only 
very uncertain traces of this fundamental dogma. The 
Sadducee, who did not believe in it, was in reality 
faithful to the old Jewish doctrine ; the Pharisee, the 
partizan of resurrection, was the innovator. But in 
religion it is always the zealous portion which makes 
innovations ; it is the party of progress, it is that which 
achieves results. The resurrection, an idea totally dif- 
ferent from the immortality of the soul, moreover, 
grew very naturally out of the former doctrines and 
condition of the people. Perhaps Persia also furnished 
some of its elements.ij: At all events, combining with 
the belief in the Messiah and the doctrine of a speedy 
renewal of all things, it formed those apocalyptic the- 
ories which, without being articles of faith (the ortho- 
dox sanhedrim of Jerusalem seems not to have adopted 
them), were rife in the imagination of all and produced 
from one end to the other of the Jewish world an in- 
tense fermentation. The total absence of dogmatic 
rigor allowed very contradictory notions to be accept- 
ed at the same time, even on a point so important. 
Sometimes the just man was to await the resurrection ;[ 
sometimes he was received at the moment of his death 
into Abraham's bosom.§ Sometimes the resurrection 

• Wi8d(ym, iv, 1 ; Z>e rat. imp. , 16, 18. f ^ Macc. , vil, 9, 14; xix, 43, 44 

t Theopompus, Diog. Laert., Prooem.,9. Boundehesch, c. xxxi. The traces 
of the doctrine of the resurrection in the Avesta are very doubtful 
I John, XI, 24. ^ Luke, xvi, 22. Cf. De rat. imp., 13, 16, 18. 



90 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

was universal,* sometimes reserved for tlie faithful 
alone.f Sometimes it supposed a renewed earth and a 
new Jerusalem : sometimes it implied a preliminary- 
annihilation of the universe. 

Jesus, with his earliest thoughts, entered into the 
burning atmosphere which created in Palestine the 
ideas that we have set forth. These ideas were taught 
at no school ; but they were in the air, and his soul 
was soon filled with them. Our hesitations, our doubts 
never reached him. Upon this summit of the moun- 
tain of JSTazareth, where no modern man can sit with- 
out an anxious feeling, perhaps frivolous in regard to 
his future, Jesus has sat twenty times without a doubt. 
Free from selfishness, the source of our sorrows, which 
makes us seek greedilj^ an interest beyond the tomb 
for virtue, he thought only of his work, his race, hu- 
manity. To him these mountains, this sea, this azure 
sky, these high plains in the horizon were not the mel- 
ancholy vision of a soul questioning nature as to its 
fate, but the sure symbol, the transparent shadow of 
an invisible world and a new heaven. 

He never attached much importance to the political 
events of his time, and he was probably ill-infjyrmed 
concerning them. The dynasty of the Herods lived in 
a world so difi'erent from his, that undoubtedly he knew 
it only by name. Herod the Great died about the 
year of his birth, leaving imperishable memories, mon- 
uments which were to force the most malevolent pos- 
terity to associate his name with that of Solomon, nev- 
ertheless an unfinished work, impossible of continua- 
tion. An ambitious wordling wandering in a labyrinth 
of religious strife, this astute Idumean had that ad- 

* Dan., XII, 2. t II Mace, vii, 14. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 91 

vantage which is given by coolness and reason, devoid 
of morality, in the midst of passionate fanatics. But 
his idea of a worldly kingdom of Israel, even had it 
not been an anachronism in the state of the world in 
which he conceived it, would have fallen like the sim- 
ilar project formed by Solomon, from the difficulties 
arising out of the very character of the nation. His 
three sons were only lieutenants of the Romans, anal- 
ogous to the rajahs of India under the English rule. 
Antipater or Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, 
whose subject Jesus was all his life, was an idle prince, a 
nobody,* a favorite and parasite of Tiberius,*!* too often 
led astray by the evil influence of his second wife He- 
rodias.J Philip, tetrarch of Gaulonitis and Batanea, 
to whose territory Jesus made frequent journeys, was 
a much better sovereign.§ As to Archelaus, ethnarch 
of Jerusalem, Jesus could not have known him. He 
was about ten years old when this man, weak, charac- 
terless, and sometimes violent, was deposed by Augus- 
tus. | The last trace of autonomy was now lost to Jerusa- 
lem, United with Samaria and Idumea, Judea formed 
a sort of additament of the province of Syria, V7here 
the senator Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, a consul well 
known^ in history, was imperial legate. A series of 
Eoman procurators, subordinate in questions of im- 
portance to the imperial legate of Syria, Coponius, 
Marcus Ambivius, Annius Rufus, Yalerius Gratus, and, 
at length (A. D. 26), Pontius Pilatus, followed, con- 

* Jos., Ant., XVIII, V, 1; VII, 1, 2; Luke, iii, 19. 

+ Jos.,^n<.,XVni,ii,3;iv, 5;v, 1. t /bid., XVIII, vil, 2. 

{ Ibid. , XVIII, 4, 6. if IMd. , XVII, xii, 2. B. J. , II, vil, 3. 

t Orelli, Inscr. lat., No. 3693; B.enzen, Suppl. , Ho. lOil; Fasti prcenestini,&tM.SLYch 
6th and April 28th (in the Corpus inner, lat., I, 314, .il7); Borghesi, Fastes consu' 
laired [not yet published], at the year 742; R.Bergmann, De inscr. lat. ad P. S. 
Quirinium, ut videtur, referenda (Berlin 1851) . Cf. Tac. , Ann. , II, 30; III, 48 ; Strabo, 
XII, VI, 5. 



92 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

stantly occupied in extinguishing the volcano which 
was in eruption beneath their feet.* 
"4 Continual seditions excited by the zealots of Mosa- 
ism, kept Jernsalem, indeed, in incessant agitation 
during this whole period.f The death of the seditious 
was certain ; but death, when the integrity of the Law 
was at stake, was greedily sought. To pull down 
the eagles, to destroy the works cf art erected by He- 
rod, in which the Mosaic regulations were not always 
respected,:j: to rebel against the votive shields set up 
bj^ the procurators, the inscriptions of which seemed 
tainted with idolatry,! were perpetual temptations to 
fanatics who had reached that degree of exaltation 
which takes away all desire of life. Judas, son of Sa- 
ripheus, and Mathias, son of Margaloth, two very cel- 
ebrated doctors of the law, formed thus a bold partj 
of aggression against the established order, which con- 
tinued after their execution. § The Samaritans were 
agitated by similar movements.Tf It seems that the 
Law had never had more passionate partizans than at 
the moment when he already lived who, by the full 
authority of his genius and his great soul, was to abro- 
gate it. The " Zelotes '' {Kenaim) or " Sicarii," pious 
assassins who imposed upon themselves the task of 
killing whoever disobeyed the Law in their presence, 
began to appear.** Representatives of an entirely dif- 
ferent spirit, thaumaturgists, considered as a species 
of divine persons, found credence^ in consequence of 

* Jos. ^ni.,1. XVIII. 
I + Ibid. , books XVII and XVIII entire, and B. J. , books I and II. 

I Jos. Ant.,XY, X. 4. Comp. Book of Enoch, xovii, 13, 14. 
1 I Thilo, Leg. ad Caium,f^ZS. 

S Jos. Ani. , XV, VI, 2 seqq. ; jB. j: , I, xxxiii, 3 seqq. 

S Jos. , Ant. , XVIII, IV, 1 seqq. 

** Mischna, Sanhedrin, ix, 6; John, xvi, 2; Jos. ,B. J., book IV seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 93 

the imperious necessity felt by the age for the super- 
natural and the divine.* 

A movement which had much more influence upon 
Jesus was that of Juda the Gaulonite or the Galilean. 
Of all the obligations to which countries newly con- 
quered by Rome were exposed, the assessment was 
the most unpopular.f This measure, wliich always 
astonishes nations little accustomed to the burdens of 
great central administrations, was particularly hateful 
to the Jews. Already under David we see a census 
provoke violent recriminations and the threats of the 
prophets.:]: The census, in fact, was the basis of the 
tax ; now the tax, according to the ideas of the pure 
theocracy, was almost impious. God being the only 
master wliom man should recognize, to pay tithes to a 
mundane sovereign, is in some sort to put him in the 
place of God, A complete stranger to the idea of the 
State, the Jewish theocracy in this, merely carried to 
its last result the negation of civil society and of all 
government. The money of the public treasury was 
considered to be stolen. § The assessment ordered by 
Quirinius (A. D. 6) thoroughly awoke these ideas and 
caused great fermentation. A commotion broke out 
in the northern provinces. A certain Juda, of the 
town of Gamala, on the eastern si i ore of Lake Tiberias, 
and a Pharisee, named Sadok, gathered together, by 
denying the lawfulness of the tax, a numerous school, 
which soon came to open revolt. || The fundamental 

* Ads, viir, 9. Verse 11th implies that Simon the Magician was already cele- 
brated in the time of Jesus. 

f Discours de Claude, a Lyon, tab. ii, sub fin. De Boissieu, Inscr. ant. de Lyon, 
p. 136. f II Sam., XXIV. 

§ Talmud de Bab., Bdba Kama, 113 a; Schahhath, ys h. 

\ Jo8.,>in<.,XVIII,i, ].,&;B. J.,ll, viii, 1; ^cte, v. 37. Before Juda the Gau- 
lonite, the Acts place another agitator, Theudas; but that is an anachronism: the 
commotion of Theudas was A. D. 44 (Jos. , Ant. , XX, v, l). 



94 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

maxims of the school were that no person should be 
called " master," that title belonging to God alone, 
and that liberty is better than life. Juda had un- 
doubtedly many other principles which Josephus, al* 
ways anxious not to compromise his co-religionists, 
intentionally passes over in silence ; for we could not 
understand that for an idea so simple, the Jewish his- 
torian should give him a place among the philosophers 
of his nation, and regard him as the founder of a fourth 
school, parallel to those of the Pharisees, Sadducees, 
and Essenes. Juda was evidently the chief of a Gali- 
lean sect, which was full of Messianism, and which ended 
in a political movement. The procurator Ooponius 
crushed the sedition of the Gaulonite ; but the school 
survived and preserved its leaders. Under the guidance 
of Menabem, the son of the founder, and of a certain 
Eleazar, his relative, we find it very active in the final 
struggles of the Jews against the Romans.* Jesus, 
perhaps, saw this Juda w^ho had so diiferent a concep- 
tion of the Jewish revolution from his own ; he knew 
his school, at all events, and it was probably through 
reaction against his mistake, that he pronounced the 
axiom in relation to the penny of Caesar. The wise 
Jesus, far removed from all sedition, profited by the 
error of his precursor and looked to another kingdom 
and another deliverance. 

Galilee was thus a vast caldron in -which the most 
diverse elements were in ebullition. f An extraordina- 
ry contempt of life, or rather a species of appetite for 
death was the consequence of these commotions. J Ex- 

* Jos., B. J., II, xvii, 8 seqq. 

f Luke, XIII, 1. The Galilean movement of Juda, son of Hezekiah, seems not 
to have had a religious character; perhaps, however, its character was concealed 
by Josephus (Atht,., XVII, x, 5). 

X Jos., ^»<., XVI, VI, 2, 3; XVIII, 1,1. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 95 

perience counts for nothing in the grand movements 
of fanaticism. Algeria, in the earlj days of tlie 
French occupation, saw arise every spring inspired 
leaders, who declared that they were invulnerable and 
were sent by God to drive out the unbelievers ; the 
next year their death was forgotten, and their succes- 
sor found no weaker faith. Yery severe in one res- 
pect, the Roman rule, little given to intermeddling 
as yet, permitted much liberty. These great brutal 
dominations, terrible in repression, were not suspicious 
like those powers which have a dogma to preserve. 
They let all things move on until they deemed the day 
come for rigorous action. In his wayfaring life, we 
do not see that Jesus was ever interfered with by the 
authorities. Such freedom and above all the good-for- 
tune of Galilee in being much less closely bound in 
the bonds of Pharisaic pedantry, gave to that country 
a great superiority over Jerusalem. The revolution, 
or in other words Messianism, set all wits at work. 
They believed that they were on the eve of seeing the 
great renewal appear; Scripture tortured in various 
ways served to feed the most colossal expectations. In 
each line of the simple writings of the Old Testament 
they saw the assurance and in some sort the programme 
of the future reign which should bring peace to the just 
ai>d seal forever the work of God. 

At all times, this division into two parties, opposite 
in interest and in spirit, had been to the Hebraic na- 
tion an element of fruitfulness in the moral order. 
Every people called to high destinies must be a little 
world complete, containing within itself the opposite 
poles. Greece presented at a distance of few miles 
Sparta and Athens, the two antipodes to a superficial 



96 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

observer, in reality rival sisters, each necessary to the 
other. It was the same with Judea. Less brilliant in 
one sense than the development of Jerusalem, that of 
the north was upon the whole much more fruitful ; the 
most living works of the Jewish people had always 
come from thence. A complete absence of the senti- 
ment of nature, resulting in something withered, nar- 
row and fierce, stamped all works purely Hierosolymite 
with a character grandiose but sad, arid and repulsive. 
With its solemn doctors, its inspired canonists, its 
hypocritical and atrabiliary devotees, Jerusalem would 
not have conquered humanity. The north gave to the 
world the artless Shulamite, the humble Canaanite, the 
impassioned Magdalen, the good Jbster-father Joseph, 
the Virgin Mary. The north alone formed Christian- 
ity ; Jerusalem, on the contrary, is the real country 
of that obstinate Judaism which, founded by the 
Pharisees and fixed by the Talmud, has crossed the 
middle ages and finally reached us. 

A. transporting nature contributed to form this 
spirit, so much less austere, less bitterly monotheistic, 
if I may use the word, which impressed upon all the 
dreams of Galilee an idyllic and charming character. 
The saddest country in the world is perhaps the region 
about Jerusalem. Galilee, on the contrary, was a 
country very green, and full of shade and pleasant- 
ness, the true country of the Canticle of canticles and 
of the songs of the well-beloved."^ During the two 

* Jos., B. J., Ill, III, 1, The horrible condition to which this country is re- 
duced, especially near Lake Tiberias, should not deceive us. This land, now 
burned over, was once a terrestrial paradise. The baths of Tiberiaa, to-day a 
hideous place, were formerly the finest spot in Galilee (Jos. , Ant. , XVIII, ir, 3). 
Josephus (B. J., Ill, X, 8) praises the fine trees of the plain of Genesareth, 
where there is now not one. Antoninus Martyr, towards the year 600, fifty 
years before the Moslem invasion, finds Galilee still covered ^ith delightful 
plantations, and compares its fertility to that of Egypt (Ilin.,^^ 5). 



LIFE OF JESUS. 97 

months of March and April it is a dense mass of flow- 
ers of an incomparable freshness of colors. The ani- 
mals are small but extremely gentle. Lively and 
graceful turtle-doves, blue-birds so slight that they 
alight upon a blade of grass without bending it, crest- 
<ed larks that come almost to the feet of the traveller, 
little brook turtles with quick, soft eyes, storks of 
grave and modest air, putting oJBf all timidity, allow 
themselves to be approached very closely by man and 
seem to call him. In no place in the world do the 
mountains spread out with more harmony or inspire 
loftier ideas. Jesus seems to have loved them especi- 
ally. The most important acts of his divine career 
were performed upon the mountains ; there he was 
best inspired ;* there he had secret conferences with 
the ancient prophets and showed himself to his disciples 
already transfigured. f 

This goodly country, now become, in consequence 
of the enormous impoverishment which Islamism has 
effected in human life, so sad, so distressing, but 
where all that man could not destroy still breathes 
abandon, gentleness and tenderness, was overflowing 
in the time of Jesus with gayety and comfort. The 
Galileans were considered energetic, brave and labo- 
rious.:]: If we except Tiberias, built by Antipater in 
honor of Tiberius (towards the year 15) in the Koman 
style^ll Galilee had no large cities. The country was 
nevertheless densely populated, covered with small 
towns and large villages, and carefully cultivated in 
every part.§ By the ruins which remain to us of its 

» Matt, v,l; XIV, 23; Luke, VI, 12. 

t Matt. , XVII, 1 seqq. ; Mark, ix, 1 seqq. ; Luke, ix, 28 seqq. 

1 Jos., B. J., Ill, HI, 2. I Jos., XVIII, 11,2; £ J., II, ix, 1: Fito, 12, 18, M. 

VJ08.,JS. J^.,III,in,2. 

6 



98 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

ancient splendor, we perceive an agricultural people, 
with no endowments for art, careless of luxury, indif- 
ferent to the beauties of form and exclusively idealist. 
The conntry must have been delightful : it abounded 
in springs and fruits ; the large manors were shadow- 
ed with vines and fig-trees ; the gardens were clumps of 
lemon, pomegranate and orange trees.* The wine was 
delicious, if we may judge of it by that which the 
Jews still make at Safed, and it was much nsed.f 
This life, content and easily satisfied, did not lead to 
the stolid materialism of our peasantry, the coarse 
jovialty of abundant Normandy or the heavy gayety 
of the Belgians. It became spiritualized in eternal 
dreams, in a sort of poetic mysticism confounding 
heaven and earth. Leave the austere John the Bap- 
tist to his desert of Judea to preach penitence, to cry 
without ceasing, to live on locusts in company with 
the jackals. Why should the companions of the bride- 
groom fast while the bride-groom is with them? 
Gladness shall make a portion of the kingdom of God. 
Is it not the daughter of the humble in heart, of the 
men of good will ? 

The whole history of the birth of Christianity thus 
became a delightful pastoral. A Messiah at wedding 
feasts, the harlot and the good Zaccheus invited to his 
feasts, the founders of the kingdom of heaven like a 
cortege of paranymphs : this is what Galilee dared, 
wliat she compelled the world to accept. Greece 
traced in sculpture and poetry charming pictures of 

* We may judge by some enclosures in the environs of Nazareth. Cf. Anto- 
ninus Martyr i. c The aspect of the great farms is still well preserved in the 
southern part of the country of Tyre (once the tribe of Asher). Traces of the 
ancient Palestinian agriculture, with its utensils cut in the rock (threshing- 
floors, wine-presses, corn-bins, troughs, mills, etc.), are met^y^ith also at every 
step 

t Matt., IX, 17; xi, 19; Mark, ii, 22; Luke, v, 37; vii, 34; John, ii, 3 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 99 



linman life, but always without perspective or distan 
horizons. Here are no marble, no excellent workmen 
no exquisite and refined language. But Galilee cre- 
ated upon the groundwork of popular imagination the 
most sublime ideal; for behind its idyl the fate of hu- 
manity is decided and the light which illumines its 
picture is the sun of the kingdom of God. 

Jesus lived and grew in this intoxicating medium. 
From his childhood, he went to Jerusalem almost 
every year to the feasts.* The pilgrimage was to the 
provincial Jews a deliglitful custom. Whole series of 
psalms were devoted to celebrating the pleasure of 
these family journeys, f enduring several days, in 
spring, across hills and valleys, all having in prospect 
the splendors of Jerusalem, the terrors of the sacred 
courts, the pleasantness of brethren dwelling to- 
gether.ij: The route which Jesus followed ordinarily 
in these journeys was that which is followed to-day, 
by Ginsea and Shechem. | From Shechem to Jerusa- 
lem it is very difficult. But the vicinity of the old 
sanctuaries of Shiloh and Bethel, near which the road 
passes, keeps the soul aroused. Ain-el-Haramieh^ the 
last station,§ is a place of charming melancholy, and 
few impressions equal that experienced upon encamp- 
ing there for the night. The valley is narrow and 
gloomy ; a dark water oozes from the rocks pierced 
with sepulchres, which form its walls. It is, I think, 
the " Valley of tears," or of the dripping waters, cele- 

* Luke, n, 41. f Luke, ir, 42-44. 

X See especially Psalms lxxxiv, cxxiiand cxxiii (Vulg. lxxxviii, cxxi and 
cxxxn). 

U Luke, IX, 51-53; xvii, 11; John,iv, 4; Jos., ^n«., XX, vi,l; B.J., II, xii, 3 
Vtta,b2. Often, however, the pilgrims came by Perea to avoid Samaria where 
they incurred danger. Matt, xix, 1; Mark, x, 1. 

f> According to Josephus {Vita, 52), it was a three days' journey. But the 
days' journey from Shechem to Jerusalem had ordinarily to be cut in two. 






100 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

bra ted as one of the stations by the way in that de- 
lightful psalm Lxxxiv,"^ and become to the sadly sweet 
mysticism of the middle ages, the emblem of life. The 
next day in good time they will be at Jerusalem ; 
such an expectation, even at this day sustains the car- 
avan and renders the night short and sleep light. 

These journeys, in which the united nation inter- 
communicated its ideas, and which were nearly always 
focuses of great agitation, put Jesus in contact with 
the soul of his people, and doubtless inspired in him 
a lively antipathy to the faults of the official represen- 
tatives of Judaism. It is said that the desert soon be- 
came another school to him and that he made in it 
long sojourns.* But the God which he found there 
was not his own. It was at most the God of Job, 
severe and terrible, rendering an account to no man. 
Sometimes Satan came to tempt him. He returned 
then into his dear Galilee, and found again his heav- 
enly Father, in the midst of the green hills, and the 
clear springs, among the flocks of children and women 
who, with joyful soul and the song of the angels in 
their hearts, were awaiting the salvation of Israel. 

* iixxziu according to the Vulgate, v. 7. f Luke, iv, 42; t, 16. 



LIFE OP JESUS. 101 



CHAPTEK y. 



FIRST APHOEISMS OF JESUS. — HIS IDEAS OP A FATHEB 
GOD AKD A PUEE EBLIGION. — FIRST DISCIPLES. 

Joseph died before the public life of his son began . 
Mary thus remained the head of the family, and this 
explains why her son, when it was desired to distin- 
guish him from the many others of the sam.e name, 
was usually called the " son of Mary."* It seems 
that becoming by the death of ber husband a stran- 
ger in Nazareth, she retired to Cana,f of which she 
may have been a native. Oana:j: was a small town 
eigbt or ten miles from Nazareth, at the foot of the 
mountains which limit on the north the plain of Aso- 
chis.§ The prospect, less grand than at Nazareth, 
extends over the whole plain and is closed most pic- 
turesquely by the mountains of Nazareth and the hills 
of Sephoris. Jesus appears to have made this place 
his residence for some time. There he probably passed 
a portion of his youth, and thence came his first 
splendors. 

• This is the expression of Mark, vi, 3. Cf. Matt., xni, 55. Mark does not 
know Joseph. John and Luke, on the contrary, prefer the expression " son of 
Joseph." Luke, iii, 23; iv, 22; John, i, 45; vi, 42. 

+ John, II, 1 ; IV, 46. John alone is informed on this point. 

J I accept as probable the opinion which identifies Cana of Galilee with Kama 
A-Jdil. Arguments however can be made in favor of Kefr- Kenna, four or five 
milesnorth-northeast of Nazareth. H Now cZ-jBi " 



§ John, II, 11; IV, 44. One or two of the disciples were from Cana. John, xvi, 
Ml 



2: Matt., X, 4; Mark, 111,8. 



102 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. * 

He worked at the trade of his father, which was 
that of a carpenter.* This was no humiliating or un- 
welcome circumstance. The Jewish customs de- 
manded that the man devoted to intellectual labors 
should understand some occupation. The most cele- 
brated doctors had trades ;f thus St. Paul, whose edu- 
cation had been so well cared for, was a tent-maker.:{: 
Jesus never married. All his power to love was 
transferred to what he considered his celestial vocation. 
The extremely delicate feeling which we notice in him 
towards women, 1 never departed from the exclusive 
devotion which he had to his idea. He treated as 
sisters, like Francis d'Assisi and Francis de Sales, 
those women who were enamoured with the same 
work as he; he had his St. Claires, his Francoises de 
Chantal. Only it is probable that they loved him 
more than the work ; he was undoubtedly more loved 
thau loving. As often happens in very loftj^ natures, 
tenderness of heart was in him transformed into infi- 
nite sweetness, vague poetry, universal charm. His 
relations, intimate and free, but of an entirely moral 
order, with women of equivocal conduct is explained 
also by the passion which attached him to the glory 
of his Father, and inspired in him a kind of jeal- 
ousy of all beautiful creatures who might contribute 
to it.§ 

What was the progress of the mind of Jesus during 
this obscure period of his life ? Through what medi- 
tations did he launch out into the prophetic career? 
We are ignorant, his history having come to us in the 

* Mark, vi, 3- Justin, Dial, cum Tryph. , 88. 

\ For example, Kabbi lohanau the Shoemaker, Rabbi Isaac the Blacksmith.' 

{ Acts, XVIII, 3. J See hereafter p. 167-168. 

^ Luke, VII, 37 se iq. ; John, iv, 7 seqq. ; viii, 3 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 103 

state of isolated stories and without exact chronology. 
But the development of living products is everywhere 
the same, and there can be no doubt that the growth 
of a personality as mighty as that of Jesus obeyed 
very rigid laws. A lofty idea of divinity, wliich he 
did not owe to Judaism and which seems to have 
been entirely the creation of his great soul, was the 
foundation of all his power. Here it is that we must 
most of all renounce those ideas with which we are 
familiar and those discussions in which small minds 
wear themselves away. Properly to understand the 
degree of the piety of Jesus, we must rid ourselves 
of all that has intruded itself between the Gospel and 
ourselves. Deism and paganism have become the two 
poles of theology. The paltry discussion of scholas- 
ticisms, the aridity of soul of Descartes, the thorough 
irreligion of the eighteenth century, by diminishing 
God and in some sort limiting him by the exclusion 
of all that is not him, stifled in the breast of modern 
rationalism every fruitful feeling of divinity. If God 
is, indeed, a determinate being without us, the person 
who believes that he has private relations with God is 
a " visionary," and as the physical and physiological 
sciences have shown us that every supernatural vision 
is an illusion, the deist who is at all consistent finds 
himself beyond the possibility of comprehending the 
great beliefs of the past. Pantheism on the other 
hand, by denying the divine personality, is as far as 
possible from the living God of the ancient religions. 
Were the men who have most loftily comprehended 
God, Sakya-Mouni, Plato, St. Paul, St. Francis d'Assisi 
and St. Augustine at some moments of his changeful life, 
' r pantheists ? Such a question has no meaning. 



104 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

The physical and metaphysical proofs of the existence 
of God to them would have had no interest. They 
felt the divine within themselves. In the first rank of 
this grand family of the true sons of God, we must 
place Jesus. Jesus has no visions ; God does not speak 
to him from without ; God is in him ; he feels that he 
is with God, and he draws from his heart what he says 
of his Father. He lives in the bosom of God by unin- 
terrupted communication ; he does not see him, but he 
understands him without need of thunder and burning 
bush like Moses, of a revealing tempest like Job, of an 
oracle like the old Greek sages, of a familiar genius 
like Socrates, or of an angel Gabriel like Mahomet. 
The imagination and hallucination of a St. Theresa, for 
example, here go for nothing. The intoxication of the 
Soufi proclaiming himself identical with God is also an 
entirely different thing. Jesus never for a moment 
enounces the sacrilegious idea that he is God. He be- 
lieves that he is in direct communion with God ; he be- 
lieves himself the son of God. The highest conscious- 
ness of God which ever existed in the breast of hu- 
manity was that of Jesus. 

It is clear, on the other hand, that Jesus, setting out 
with such proclivity of soul, will be in no wise a spec- 
ulative philosopher like Sakya-Mouni. Nothing is 
further from scholastic theology than the gospel.* The 
speculations of the Greek Fathers in regard to the di- 
vine essence come from an entirely different spirit. 
God conceived immediately as Father, this is the 

* The discourses which the fourth gospel attributes to Jesus already contain 
a germ of theology. But these discourses being in contradiction with those of 
the synoptic gospels, which represent without any doubt the primitive Logia, 
they should be considered as elements of apostoUc history, and not i i»:» -arinl 
for the life of Jesus. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 105 

whole theology of Jesus. And that was not with him 
a theoretical principle, a doctrine more or less proven, 
and which he sought to inculcate. He used no argu- 
ment with his disciples ;* he exacted from them no ef- 
fort of attention. He did not preach his opinions, he 
preached himself. Oftentimes the greatest and most 
disinterested souls present, associated with a high de- 
gree of elevation, this peculiarity of perpetual atten- 
tion to themselves and extreme personal susceptibility, 
which in general is peculiar to women. f Their per- 
suasion that God is within them and is perpetually 
caring for them, is so strong that they have no fear of 
imposing themselves upon others ; with our reserve, 
our respect for the opinion of others, which is a por- 
tion of our weakness, they have nothing to do. This 
exalted personality is not egotism ; for such men, pos- 
sessed by their idea, gladly give their life to seal their 
work ; it is the identification of the me with the object 
which it has embraced, carried to its last extent. It is 
pride to those who see in it only the personal fantasy 
of the founder ; it is the finger of God to those who see 
the result. The fool here almost touches the inspired 
man ; only the fool never succeeds. Hitherto it has 
never been given to aberration of mind to produce a 
serious effect upon the progress of humanity. 

Jesus undoubtedly did not at once reach this lofty 
affirmation of himself. But it is probable that from 
the very first he looked to God in the relation of a son 
to a father. This is his great act of originality ; in 
this he is in no wise of his race.:]: Neither the Jew nor 



* See Matt. , ix, 9, and the other analogous accounts. 

+ See, for example, John, xxi, 15 seqq. 

X The beautiful soul Of Philo met here, as on so many other points, with that 
of Jesus. Deccnfus.ling., ^ 14; De Mif/r. Abr., §1; Desomniis, II, §41; Deagrlc. 
Noe, k 12; De mvlatvme nomdmim, ^ 4. But Philo has hardly a Jewish mind. 



106 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the Moslem have learned this delightful theology of love. 
The God of Jesus is not the hateful master who kills ns 
when he pleases, damns us when he pleases, saves 
us when he pleases. The God of Jesus is Our Father. 
We hear him when we listen to a low whisper within 
us which says, " Father.""^ The God of Jesus is not 
the partial despot who has chosen Israel for his people 
and protects it in the face of all and against all. He 
is the God of humanity. Jesus will not be a patriot 
like the Maccabees, or a theocrat like Juda the Gau- 
lonite. Rising boldly above the prejudices of his na- 
tion, he will establish the universal fatherhood of God. 
The Gaulonite maintained that men should die rather 
than give to another than God the name of "master;" 
Jesus leaves this name to whoever chooses to take 
it, and reserves for God a gentler title. According to 
the mighty ones of the earth, to him the representa- 
tives of force, a respect full of irony, he founds the su- 
preme consolation, the recourse to the Father w^hich 
each one has in heaven, the true kingdom of God 
which each one bears in his heart. 

This name of "kingdom of God" or "kingdom of 
heaven "f was the favorite term of Jesus to express 
the revolution which he brought into this world.J 
Like nearly all the Messianic terms, it came from the 
Book of Daniel. According to the author of this ex- 
traordinary book, to the four profane empires, destined 
to be destroyed, will succeed^ a fifth empire, which will 

*Gal., IV, 6. 

t The word " heaven " in the rabbinic language of this period, is synonymous 
with the name of " God," which they avoided saying. Comp. Matt., xxi, '^5; 
Luke, XV, 18; xx, 4. 

X This expression recurs on every page of the synoptic evangelists, of the Acts 
of the Apostles, and of St. Paul. If it appears but once in St. John, (iii, 3 and 
6) , it Ls because the discourses reported by the fourth evangelist are far from re- 
presenting the real words of Jesus. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 10 



t-r 



be that of tlie saiots and wliicli will endure forever."* 
This reign of God upon the earth naturally received 
the most diverse interpretations. In the Jewish the- 
ology, the " kingdom of God " is usually nothing but 
Judaism itself, the true religion, the monotheistic wor- 
ship, piety. f During the latter portion of his life, 
Jesus believed that this reign was to be realized ma- 
terially by a speedy renewal of the world. But this 
undoubtedly was not his first thought.;]: The admira- 
ble moral which he draws from the idea of this father 
God is not that of enthusiasts who believe the world 
near its end, and who are preparing by ascetism for a 
chimerical catastrophe ; it is tliat of a world which 
desires to live and which has lived. " The kingdom 
of God is within you," said he to those who subtly 
asked for external signs. || The material conception of 
the divine advent was only a cloud, a passing error 
which death consigned to oblivion. The Jesus who 
founded the real kingdom of God, the kingdom of the 
meek and lowly, this is the Jesus of the earlier days,§ 
days chaste and without alloy, when the voice of his 
Father resounded in his heart with a purer tone. 
There were then some months, perhaps a year, during 
which God really lived upon the earth. The voice of 
the young carpenter suddenly assumed extraordinary 
sweetness. Infinite charm exhaled from his person, and 
the companions of his youth no longer recognized him.T 

* Dan. , II, 44; vii, 13, 14, 22, 27. 

t MischnsL, .Berakoth, n, 1, 3; Talmud of JeT\i9.,Berdkoth , n, 2; KidduscMn, 1, 2; 
Talmud ofB&b., Berakoth, 15 a; MekiUa, 42 b; Siphra, 170 6. The expression oc- 
curs often in the Midraschim. 

X Matt. , VI, 33; xii, 28; xix, 12; Mark, xii, 34; Luke, xii, 31. 

11 Luke, XV 11, 2a-21. 

% The grand theory of the apocalypse of the Son of man is in fact reserved, in 
the synoptics, until the chapter preceding the story of the passion. The first 
teachings especially in Matthew are entirely moral. 

\ Matt., xm, 64 seqq.; Mark, vi, 2 seqq. ; John, vi, 42. 



108 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

He had jet no disciples, and the throng which 
pressed around him was neither a sect nor a school ; 
but they felt already a common spirit, something gen- 
tle and penetrating. His lovely character, and doubt- 
less one of those transporting countenances* which 
sometimes appear in the Jewish race, created around 
him a circle of fascination which hardly any, among 
this friendly and artless people, could resist. 

Paradise had been, indeed, transported upon earth, 
had not the ideas of the young master too widely over- 
stepped the level of common goodness, above which 
the human race has hitherto been incapable of being 
elevated. The brotherhood of men, sons of God, and 
the moral consequences which result from this, were 
deduced with an exquisite sentiment. Like all the 
rabbis of the time, Jesus, little given to consecutive 
reasonings, compressed his doctrine into aphorisms 
concise and of an expressive form, sometimes strange 
and enigmatical. t Some of these maxims come from 
the books of the Old Testament. Others were;,the 
thoughts of more modern sages, especially of Antigo- 
nus of Soco, Jesus, the son of Sirach, and Hillel, 
which were known to him, not through learned studies, 
but as proverbs often repeated. The synagogues were 
rich in maxims very happily expressed, which formed 
a sort of current proverb literature.^ Jesus adopted 
nearly all this oral instruction, infusing into it a loftier 
meaning.! Increasing ordinarily upon the duties de- 

-••♦ The tradition of the trgllnesg of Jesus (Justin, Dial cum TrypTi., 85, 88, 100) 
comiBs from the desire to find realized in him a pretended Messianic trait (Isaiah 

LI1I.2). 

f The Logia Of St. Matthew piece together many of these axioms, to make grand 
discourses. But the fragmentary form is perceptible in the seams. 

X The sentences of learned Jews of the time are collected in the little book en* 
titled: Pirke Ahoth. 

I The comparisons will be made hereafter as they present themselves. It 10 



LIFE OF JESUS. 109 

clared by the Law and the elders, he demanded per- 
fection. All the virtues of humility, of forgiveness, of 
charity, of abnegation, of severity to self, virtues whick 
are rightly named Christian, if by that is meant that 
they were really preached by Christ, were in germ in 
these first teachings. For justice, he contented him- 
self with repeating the well known axiom, " Do not to 
others that which ye would not that they should do 
unto you."* But this ancient wisdom, which was still 
somewhat selfish, was not enough for him. He went 
far beyond : 

" Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, 
turn to him the other also. And if any man sue thee 
at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy 
cloak also."-)- 

" If thy right eye oiiend thee, pluck it out, and cast 
it from thee.":j: 

" Love your enemies ; do good to them that hate you ; 
pray for them that persecute you."l| 

" Judge not that ye be not judged.§ Forgive and 
ye shall be forgiven. T" Be ye merciful as your Father 
in heaven is merciful.** It is more blessed to give 
than to receive. "ft 

sometimes supposed that the compilation of the Talmud being posterior to that 
of the Gospels, appropriations might have been made by the Jewish compilers 
from the Christian morality. But that is inadmissible; there was a wall of sep- 
aration between the church and the synagogue. Christian literature and Jewish 
literature had before the xiiith century, scarcely any influence upon each 
other. 

* Matt. VII, 12; Luke, vi, 31. This axiom was-already in the book of Tobit,iv, 
16. Hillel made use of it habitually (Talm. of Bab. , ScfuMath, 31 a) , and de- 
clared like Jesus that it was the epitome of the Law. 

+ Matt., V, 39 seqq. ; Luke, vi, 29. Comp. Jeremiah, in, 30. 

S Matt., V, 29-30; xviii, 9; Mark, ix, 46. 
Matt. , V, 44; Luke, vi, 27 Comp. Talm. of Bab. Schabbath, 88 b; Joma, 23 a. 
Matt., vii, 1; Luke, vi, 37. Comp. Talm. of Bab. Kethuboth, 105 b. 
Xiuke,vi,37. Comp. LeviL, xix, 18; Prov., xx, 22; EccUsiastes, xxvui, 1 
eeqq. 
•* Luke, VI, 36; Siphre, 51 6 (Sultzbach, 1802). 
ff A saying reported in the Acts, xx, 35. 



110 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

"Whosoever exaltetli himself shall be abased ; and 
he tliat humbleth himself shall bs exalted."* 

Concerning alms, pity, good works, gentleness, the 
desire of peace, complete disinterestedness of heart, he 
had little to add to the doctrines of the synagogue.f 
But he gave to them an accent full of unction, which 
made new aphorisms uttered long before. Morality 
is not composed of principles more or less well ex- 
pressed. The poetry of the precept, which makes it 
lovely, is more than the precept itself, taken as an ab- 
stract verity. Now, it cannot be denied that the max- 
ims borrowed by Jesus from his predecessors, produce, 
in the gospel, an effect totallj^ different from that in 
the ancient Law, in the Pirlie Aboth^ or in the Tal- 
mud. It is not the ancient Law, it is not the Talmud, 
which has conquered and changed the world. Little 
original in itself, if by that is meant that it can be re- 
composed almost entirely with more ancient maxims, 
the evangelical morality remains none the less the 
highest creation which has emanated from the human 
conscience, the most beautiful code of perfect life that 
any moralist has traced. 

He did not speak against the Mosaic law, but it is 
clear that he saw its insufficiency, and allowed it to be 
imderstood. lie constantly repeated that it was ne- 
cessary to do more than the ancient sages had said. J 
He prohibited the least harsh word;I he forbade di- 
vorceg and all oaths ;T he blamed retaliation ;** he 

* Matt., XXIII, 17; Lukexiv, U; xviir, 14. The sayings reported by St. Je- 
rome from the •' Gospel according to the Hebrews" (Comment. inEpist. odEphes., 
V, 4; in Ezek.,xvin; Dial. adv. Pelag., Ill, 2), are marked by the same spirit 
■\ Deut, XXIV, XXV. xxvi.etc, Is.,lviii, 7;Prov., xix, 11 ^PirkeAboth,! ; Talmud 
of Jerusalem, Peak, i, 1; Talmud of Babylon, Schdbbath, 63 a. 

t Matt. , V, 20 seqq. II Matt. , v, 22. 

I Matt. , V, 31 seqq. Compare Talm. of Bab. , Sanhedrin, 22 a. 

% Matt. , V, 33 seqq. ** Matt. , v, 38 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. Ill 

condemned usury ;* he declared voluptuous desire rq 
criminal as adultery. f He desired universal forgive- 
ness of injuries.:!: The motive with which he enforced 
these maxims of lofty charity was always the same : — 
*'That ye may be the children of your Father which is 
in heaven ; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil 
and on the good. If ye love," added he, " them only 
which love you, what reward have ye ? do not even 
the publicans the same? And if ye salute your breth- 
ren only, what is that ? do not the heathen the same ? 
Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect."] 

A pure worship, a religion without priests and with- 
out external practices, reposing entirely upon the feel- 
ings of the heai't, upon the imitation of God,§ upon 
the immediate communion of ^the conscience with the 
heavenly Father, were the result of these principles. 
Jesus never recoiled before that bold deduction which 
made of him, in the bosom of Judaism, a revolutionist 
of the highest stamp. "Wherefore mediators between 
man and his Father? God seeing only the heart, of 
what use these purifications, these rites, which reach 
only the body?^" Tradition itself, a thing so holy to 
the Jew, is nothing compared with pure feeling.** The 
hypocrisy of the Pharisees, who in praying turned 
their heads to see if anyone were looking, who gave 
their alms with ostentation, and put upon their dress 
signs which made them known as pious persons, all 
these affectations of false devotion were revolting to 

* Matt. V. 4?. The Law forbarle it also (Deut., xv, 7-8), but less formally, 
and usage authorised it (Luke. vii. 4l seqq.). 

t Matt., XXVII, 28. Go tapare Talmud, J/asseA;e<-^aZta (edit. Furth , 1793) , foL 
84 b. 

i Matt., V, 23 seqq. j) Matt. , v, 45 seqq. Compare Lev., xr, 44. 

Compare Philo, Be miffr. Abr., § 23 and 24; De vita contemplaiiva, entire. 
Matt., XV, 11 seqq. ; Mark, vii, 6 seqq. ** Mark, vli, 6 seqq. 




112 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

him.* "They have their reward," said he; "but 
when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what 
thy right hand doeth ; that thine alms may be in se- 
cret : and thy Father which seeth in secret, himself 
shall reward thee openly. And when thou pray est, 
thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are : for they love 
to pray standing in the synagogues, and in the corners 
of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Yerily, 
I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, 
when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when 
thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in 
secret ; and thy Father which seeth in secret, shall re- 
ward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain 
repetitions, as the heathen do : for they think that they 
shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye 
therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth 
what things ye have need of before ye ask him."f 

He affected no external sign of asceticism, content- 
ing himself with praying or rather meditating upon the 
mountains and in solitary places, where man has al- 
ways sought God.ij: This lofty idea of tlie communion 
of man with God, of which so few souls, even after him, 
were to be capable, was condensed into a prayer, which 
he thenceforth taught to his disciples :|| 

" Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy 
name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on 
earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our dai]y 
bread. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive 
those who have trespassed against us. Lead us not in- 



* Matt., VI, 1 seqq. Compare Ecclesiastes, x.yii, IS; xxix, 15; Talm. of Bab. 
Chagiga, 5 a; Baba Baihra, 9 b. 

I Matt., Yi, 2-8. X Matt., XIV, 23; Luke, iv.42, v, 16; vi,12. 

Matt., VI, 9 seqq. ; Luke xi, 2 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 113 

to temptation ; but deliver us from the Evil One."* 
He insisted particularly upon this idea that our heav- 
enly Father knows better than we what we need, and 
that we almost insult him in asking for a definite 
thing.f 

Jesus^ in this, did nothing more than to deduce the 
consequences of the great principles which Judaism 
had established, but which the ofiicial classes of the 
nation tended more and more to disown. The Greek 
and Roman prayer was almost always a mass of ver- 
biage full of egotism. jN"ever had pagan priest said to 
the faithful : " If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and 
there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against 
thee ; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy 
way ; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come 
and oflfer thy gift.";]: Alone in antiquity, the Jewish 
prophets, Isaiah especially, in their antipathy to the 
priesthood, had seen the true nature of the worship 
which ujan owes to God. " To what purpose is the 
multitude of your sacrifices ? I am full of the burnt 
ofl'erings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; incense is 
an abomination unto me ; for your hands are full of 
blood. Make clean youl* thoughts ; cease to do evil; 
learn to do well; seek justice, and come then."] In 
the latter days, some teachers, Simeon the Just,§ Je- 
sus, son of Sirach,T" and Hillel,*^ almost reached the 
goal, and declared that the sum of the Law was jus- 
tice. Philo, in the Judaic-Egyptian world, attained 
at the same time with Jesus to ideas of a high moral 

♦ That i8 to say from the devil. f Luke, xi, 5 seqq. % M^^**- > v, 23-24. 
II Isaiah, i,ll seqq. Compare ibid., lviii entire; Hosea, vi, 6; Malachi, i, 10 seqq. 
§ Pirke Aboth, i, 2. ^ Ecdesiasles , xxxv, 1 seqq. 

** Talm. of Jerus. , Pesachim, vi, 1 : Talm. of Bab. , same treatise, 66 a; ScMbbaik, 
81 o. ' 



X14 ORiaiNS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

holiness, the consequence of which was little regard 
for the rites of the Law.* Schemai'a and Abtalion, 
more than once, showed that they also were very libe- 
ral casuists.f Rabbi lohanan soon came to place 
works of mercy above even the study of the Law.:|: 
Jesus alone, nevertheless, said it in an effective man- 
ner. IS^ever was any man less a priest than Jesus, 
never more an enemy of the forms which stifle religion 
under the pretext of preserving it. By that, we are 
all his disciples and his continuators ; by that he has 
laid an eternal rock, the corner-stone of true religion, 
and, if religion be the one thing needful to humanity, 
by that he has earned the divine rank which has been 
assigned to him. An idea absolutely new, the idea of 
a worship founded upon purity of heart and human 
fraternity, made through him its entrance into the 
world, an idea so elevated that the Christian church 
was upon this point completely to betray his inten- 
tions, and that, in our days, but few souls are capable 
of comprehending it. 

An exquisite perception of nature furnished him 
at all times with expressive images. Sometimes a re 
markable penetration, what we call genius, set off his 
aphorisms ; at others, their vivid form was due to the 
happy employment of popular proverbs. " How canst 
thou say to thy brother, ' Let me pull out the mote 
out of thine eye ;' and, behold, a beam is in thine own 
eje? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of 
thine own eye ; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast 
out the mote out of thy brother's eye."|| 

• Quod Deusimmut., § 1 and 2: De Abrahamo, § 22; Quis rerum divin. Ticeres, ^ 13 
ueqq. ; 55, 58 seqq. ; Deprofugis, § 7 and 8; Quod omnisprdbus liber, entire; De vita COU' 
ternplativa, entire. 

t Talm. de B&b., Pesachim, 67 b. % Talmud of Jerusalem, Peah, i, 1. 

Matt. , VII, 4-5. Compare Talmud of Babylon, Baba Bathra, 16 b; Erachin, 16 6. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 115 

These lessons, long time shut up in the heart of the 
young master, had gathered ah-eady a few converts. 
The spirit of the day was towards small churches ; it 
was the time of the Essenes or Therapeutes. Kabbis, 
each with his doctrine, Schemaia, Abtalion, Hillel, 
Schammai, Juda the Gaulonite, Gamaliel, and many 
others, of whose maxims the Talmud * is composed, 
appeared on all sides. They wrote very little. The 
Jewish teachers of that day did not make books ; ev- 
erything passed in conversation and in public lessons, 
to which they sought to give a character easy of re- 
tention. f On the day when the young carpenter of 
JSTazareth began to produce in public these maxims, 
for the most part already known, but which, thanks to 
him, were to regenerate the world, it was not, then, 
an event. It was one rabbi the more (true, the most 
charming of all), and around him a few young men 
eager to hear him and seeking the unknown. Time is 
required to compel the attention of men. There were 
yet no Christians ; true Christianity, nevertheless, was 
founded, and neve# doubtless was it more perfect than 
at this first moment. Jesus will add to it nothing 
more that will be durable. What do I say ? In one 
sense, he will compromise it ; for every idea in order 
to succeed, must needs make sacrifices ; none comes 
immaculate out of tlie struggle of life. 

To conceive the truth, indeed, is not enough ; it is 
needful to give it success among men. For that, ways 
less pure are necessary. Indeed, were the gospel con- 
fined to a few chapters of Matthew and Luke, it would 
be more perfect, and would not now give rise to so 

* See especially Pirke Aboth, ch. i. 

t The Talmud, a summary of this vast movement of the schools, hardly hegan 
to be written until the second century of our era. 



116 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

many objections; but without miracles would it have 
converted the world? Had Jesus died at the period 
which we have reached in his career, there would have 
been in his life no page which wounds us ; but, grander 
in the ejes of God, he would have remained unknown 
of men ; he would be lost in the multitude of great 
unknown souls, the best of all ; the truth would not 
have been promulgated, and the world had not profit- 
ed by the immense moral superiority which his Father 
had imparted to him. Jesus, son of Sirach, and Hillel 
had enunciated aphorisms almost as lofty as those of 
Jesus. Hillel, however, will never be considered the real 
founder of Christianity. In morality, as in art, words 
are nothing, deeds are everything. The idea which is 
concealed beneath a picture of Eaphael is a small thing ; 
it is the picture alone that counts. Likewise, in mo- 
rality, truth becomes of value only if it pass to the 
condition of feeling, and it attains all its preciousness 
only when it is realized in the world as a fact. Men 
of indifi^erent morals have written very good maxims. 
Men very virtuous, also, have done nothing to continue 
the tradition of their virtue in the world. The palm 
belongs to him who has been mighty in word and in 
work, who has felt the truth, and, at the price of 
his blood, has made it triumph. Jesus, from this 
double point of view, is without equal ; his glory re- 
mains complete, and will be renewed forever. 



LIFE OF JESFS. 11' 



CHAPTER YI. 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. — JOURNEY OF JESUS TO JOHN AND 
HIS SOJOURN IN THB DESERT OF J U D E A . — A D P T S 
THE BAPTISM OP JOHN. 

An extraordinary maiij whose work, in the absence 
of documents, remains to us in part enigmatical, ap- 
peared about this time and certainly had relations with 
Jesus. These relations rather tended to make the 
young prophet of iTazareth deviate from his way ; but 
they suggested to him many important accessories of 
his religious institution, and at all events, they fur- 
nished his disciples with a very strong authority to re- 
commend their master in the eyes of a certain class 
of Jews. 

Towards the year 28 of our era (the fifteenth year 
of the reign of Tiberius), there passed through Pales- 
tine, the fame of a certain lohanan or John, a young 
ascetic full of ardor and of passion. John was of 
priestly race,* born probably, at Jutta near Hebron or 
at Hebron itself.f Hebron, beyond all others the patri- 

*Luke, 1,5; a passage of the Gospel of the Ebionim preserved hj Epiphanius 
(Adv. hasr , xxx, 13). 

t Luke, 1, 3:(. It has been proposed with some veri-similitude, to regard " th« 
city of Juda" named in this passage ot Luke the city of Jutta (Joshua, xv, 56; 
XXI, 18. Bobinson (Bihlkal Researches, I, 494; II 206) found this Jwtta still bear- 
ing the same name, six or eight miles south of Hebron. 



113 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

archal city, situated on the borders of the desert of 
Judea, and within a few hours' travel of the great 
desert of Arabia, was at that time what it is to-day, 
one of the bulwarks of the Semitic spirit in its most 
austere form. From his infancy John was Nazir^ that 
is to say devoted by vow to certain abstinences.* The 
desert by which he was, as it were, environed, soon at- 
tracted him.f He led in it the life of an Indian yogui, 
clad in skins or in stuff of camel's hair and having no 
food but locusts and wild honey.+ A certain number 
of disciples were gathered about him, sharing his life 
and meditating upon his severe words. One might 
have believed himself transported to the banks of the 
Ganges, if certain peculiar traits had not revealed in 
this recluse, the last descendant of the greatest proph- 
et of Israel. 

Since the Jewish nation had been seized by a 
species of despair in reflecting upon its destiny, the 
imagination of the people had turned again with much 
comfort towards the ancient propliets. Eow, of all 
the personages of the past, whose memory came like 
the dreams of a troubled night to arouse and agitate 
the people, the grandest was Elias. This giant of the 
prophets, in his ragged solitude of Carmel, sharing 
the life of wild beasts, living in the caves of the rocks, 
whence he emerged like a thunderbolt to make and 
unmake kings, had become by successive transforma- 
tions a superhuman being, sometimes visible, some- 
times invisible, who had not tasted death. It was gener- 
ally believed that Elias was to come and restore Israel. | 

• Luke, 1, 15. t Lulce, i, 80. 

X Matt., Ill, 4; Mark, i, 6; fragm. of the gospel of the Ebionim in Epiph., Adv. 
Jutr.,xxyi, 13. 

II Malachi, in, 23-24 (iv, 5-6 according to the Vulgat-e) : Eccelesiastes, -X-zyui, 10; 
Matt. XVI, 14; XVII, 10 seqq; Mark, vi, 15; viii. 28: ix, 10 seqq.; Luke, ix, 8, 19; 
Johu. I, a 2:,. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 119 

The austere life which he had led, the terril)le me- 
raentos that he had left, under the impression of 
which the East yet lives,* that gloomy image which, 
even in our days, causes trembling and destruction ; 
all this mythology full of vengance and terrors, pro- 
duced a vivid and striking impression upon all minds, 
and placed, in some sort, a birth-mark upon all the 
products of the throes of the people. Whoever aspired 
to a great deed among the people must imitate Elias, 
and as solitary life had been the essential peculiarity 
of this prophet, the masses had become accustomed to 
look upon " the man of God " as a hermit. They im- 
agined that all the holy personages had their days of 
penitence, of severe life, and of austerities.f The re- 
treat to the desert became thus the condition and the 
prelude of high destinies. 

Doubtless this thought of imitation had greatly oc- 
cupied John.:]: Anchoretic life, so opposite to the spirit 
of the ancient Jewish people, and with which vows of 
the kind taken by the Kazirs and the Rechabites had 
nothing in common, invaded Judea on all sides. The Es- 
senes or Therapeutes were established near the country 
of John, upon the eastern borders of the Dead Sea.|| 
It was readily conceived that the leaders of sects must 
be recluses, having their peculiar rules and their insti- 
tutes, like the founders of religious orders. The mas- 
ters of the youth were also at times a species of an- 
chorites! closely resembling the gourous^ of Brah- 

* The ferocious Abdallah, Pasha of St. Jean d'Acre, thought to have died 
of fright from having seen him standing erect on the mountain. In the pictures 
of the Christian churches, he is seen surrounded with cut-oflf heads. The Mos- 
lems fear him. 

t Ascension d'Tsaie, ii, 9-11. % Luke, i, 17. 

I Pliny Nat. Hist., V, 17; Epiph. , Adv hcer. xit^ 1 and 2. 

^ Josephus, Vita, 2. H Spiritual preceptors. 



120 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

minisra. Indeed was there not in this a remote influ- 
ence of the mourns of India ? Had not some of the 
wandering Buddhist monks, who overran the world, 
as, at a later period did the first Franciscans, preach- 
ing bj their edifying exterior life and converting 
people who did not know their language, turned their 
steps in the direction of Judea, as they certainly had 
in that of Syria and of Babylon ?* We know not. Bab- 
ylon had become some time previously a true focus of 
Buddhism ; Boudasp (Bodhisattva) was reputed a Chal- 
dean sage and the founder of Sabianism. And what 
was Sabianism'^, What its etymology indicates :t hap- 
tism itself, that is, the religion of frequent baptism, the 
foundation of the sect still in existence, which is 
called Christians of St. John or Mendaites, and which 
the Arabs call el-Mogtasila^X " the baptists," It is 
very difficult to follow out these vague analogies. The 
sects floating between Judaism, Christianity, Bap- 
tism and Sabianism which we find in the region be- 
yond Jordan during the first centuries of our era,|| pre- 
sent to the critic, from the confusion of the accounts 
which have come to us, the most singular problem. We 
may believe, in any event, that many of the external 
practices of John, of the Essenes§ and of the Jewish 
spiritual preceptors of the time, came from a recent in- 

* I have developed this point elsewhere {JSist. gener. des langues semUiqttes,lll, 
IV, 1; Journ. Asiat., fevrier-mars 1856. 
t The Aramaean verb Seba, origin of the name Sabians, is synonymous with 

X I have treated of this at greater length in the Journal Asiatique nov.-dec. 1853 
et aout-sept. 185 1. It is remarkable that the Elchasaites, a sabian or baptist 
sect, inhabit the same country as the Essenes (the eastern border of the Dead 
Sea) and were confounded with them (Epiph. , Adv. licer., XIX, 1, 2, 4; XXX, 16. 
17: I, III, 1 and 2; Philoac/phumena. tX, iix, 15 and 16; X, xx, 2'>) 

II S ee the accounts of Epiphanius of the Essenes, the Hemero-baptists , the 
Nazarenes, the Ossenes, tlie Nazerenes. the Ebionites, the Sampsenes (Adv. 
hcer., books I and II) and those of the author of the Fhilosophumena of the E\ch&- 
eaites (books IX and X) . 

\ Epiph., Adv. Juer., XIX, XXX, LIII. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 121 

fluence of the upper East. The fundamental rite which 
characterized the sect of John, and which gave hiiu 
his name, has always had its center in Lower Chaldea, 
and there constitutes a religion which has been per- 
petuated to our dav. 

That rite was baptism or total immersion. Ablutions 
were already familiar to the Jews, as they were to all 
the religions of the East.* The Essen es had given them 
a special diffusion. f Baptism had become an ordinary 
ceremony on the introduction of proselytes into the 
bosom of the Jewish religion, a sort of initiation. :(: 
Never, however, before our Baptist had any one given 
to immersion this importance or this form. John had 
established the theatre of his work in that portion of 
the desert of Judea which lies near the Dead Sea.|| 
At the periods when he administered baptism, he 
went to the borders of the Jordan,§ either at Betliany or 
Bethabara,Tr on the eastern bank, probably opposite Jer- 
icho, or at the place called JEnon or " the Fountains ""^^ 
near Salim, wliere there was much water. ff Thither, 
large numbers, especially of the tribe of Judah, 

* Mark, vii, 4; Jos., Ant.^ XVIII, v, 2; Justin, Dial, cum Tryph.,n, 29, SO; 
Epiph., Adv. hoer., xvii. f Jos., B. J., II, viii, 5, 7, 9, 13. 

% Mischna, Pesachim, viii, 8; Talm. of Bab. , Jebamoth, 46 h; Kerithuth, 9 a; Aboda 
Zara, 57 a; Masseket Oerim (edit. Kirchheim, 1851), p. 38-40. 

II Matt. ,111, 1; Mark, 1,4. § Luke, iii,3. 

f John, I, 28; iii, 26. All the manuscripts have Bethany; but, as no Bethany is 
known in these parts, Origen (Comment. inJoann., VI, 24) proposes to substitute 
Bethabara, and his correction has been very generally accepted. The tvro words 
are, moreover, of analogous signification, and seem to indicate a place where 
there was a ferry-boat to cross the river. 

** 'yJMon is the Chaldaic plural of Mnawan, " fountains." 

+1 John, III, 23. The situation of this place is doubtful. The circumstance 
related by this Evangelist leads to the belief tliat it was not very near the Jordan. 
Yet the synoptics are constant in placing all the scenes of John's baptisms upon 
the banks of this river (Matt. , iii, 6; Mark, i, 5; Luke, m, 3). The comparison of 
verses 22 and 23 of the iiid chap, of John, and verses 3 and 4 of the ivth chap, of 
the same Evangelist, favors the belief that Salim was in Judea, and consequently 
in the oasis of Jericho, near the mouth of the Jordan, since there can hardly be 
found in the rest of the territory of the tribe of Judea a single natural basin 
which would allow the total immersion of the whole person. Saint Jerome 
thought Salim much farther north, near Beth-Schean or Scythopolis. But Rob- 
inson {BiU. Res., Ill, 3j3) could find nothing on the spot to justify this allega- 
tion. 6 



122 , ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

thronged to liim and were baptized.* In a few months 
he thus became one of the most influential men in 
Judea, and all had to do with him. 

The people regarded him as a prophet,f and many- 
imagined that he was Elias alive again. ;[: The belief 
in such resurrections, was wide spread ;[ it was 
thought that God would raise from their tombs some 
of the ancient prophets to serve as guides in conduct- 
ing Israel towards its final destiny.§ Others held 
John to be the Messiah himself, although he made no 
such claim.^f The priests and the scribes, opposed-to 
this revival of prophecy, and always inimical to en- 
thusiasts, despised him. But the popularity of the 
Baptist awed them and they dared not speak against 
him.** It was a victory of popular opinion over the 
aristocratic priesthood. When the chief priests were 
compelled to explain themselves clearly upon this 
point, it greatly embarassed them.ff Baptism was 
however to John only a sign intended to make an im- 
pression and to prepare minds for some great move- 
ment. Doubtless he was possessed in the highest de- 
gree with the expectation of the Messiah, and his 
principal action was directed by this. " Repent ye 
said he, for tlie kingdom of heaven is at hand.":]::|: He 
announced a "wrath" that is to say, terrible catastro- 
phes which were to come,l|| and declared that the ax 
was already laid unto the root of the tree and that the 
tree would be soon cast into the fire. He represented 
his Messiah fan in hand, gathering the good grain and 
burning the chaff. Repentance, of which baptism 

* Mark, i, 5; Jo9., Ant., XVIII, v, 2. + Matt, xiv, 6; xxi, 26. 

t Matt., XI, 14; Mark, vi, 15; John, i, 21. J Matt., xiv, 2; Luke, ix, 8. 

§ See above, p. 118, note ||. fl Luke, iii, 15 seqq. ; John, i, 20. 

** Matt. , XXI, 25 aeqq. : Luke, vu, 30. ft Matt. , loc. cit. 

tt Matt., Ill, 2. Ill Matt., 111,7. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 123 

was a symbol, charity, the amendment of morals,* 
were to John the great means of preparation for ap- 
proaching events. The exact date which he fixed for 
the occurrence of these events is not known. So much 
is certain, however, that he preached with much force 
against the same adversaries as Jesus, against the 
rich priests, the Pharisees, the doctors, official Juda- 
ism, in a word, and that, like Jesus, he was accepted 
readily by the despised classes. f He reduced to no- 
thing the title of children of Abraham, and said that 
God could create children of Abraham out of the 
stones of the highway. :[: It does not seem that he 
possessed, even in germ, the grand idea which consti- 
tuted the triumph of Jesus, the idea of a pure reli- 
gion ; but he was of great service to that in substitut- 
ing a private rite for tlie ceremonies of the law to 
which the priests were essential, much as the Flaggel- 
lants of the middle ages were the precursors of the 
Reformation, by taking away the monopoly of sacra- 
ments and of absolution from the official clergy. The 
general tone of his sermons was harsh and severe. 
The expressions which he used against his adversaries 
appear to have been of the most violent character. | 
They were rude and incessant invective. It is prob- 
able that he did not remain aloof from politics. Jose- 
phus, who almost touched him through his master 
Banou, hints this in hidden 2)hrase,§ and the catastro- 
phe which put an end to his days seems to suppose it. 



* Luke, III, 11-14; Jos., ^n<., XVIII, v, 2. f Matt., xxi, 32; Luke,nr,12-U 

t Matt., in, 9. 11 Matt., iii, 7; Luke, ni, 7. 

§ ^nL,xyiII,v, 2. It should be observed that when Josephus e.x poses the 



secret doctrines, more or less seditious, of his compatriots, he effaces everything 
which indicates the Messianic belief, and covers over these doctrines, so as not to 
give umbrage to the Romans, with a varnish of generality which makes the 
chiela of the Jewish sects resemble professors of moral philosophy or stoics. 



124 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

His disciples led a very austere life,* fasting frequent- 
ly and affecting a sad and anxions appearance. At times 
the existence of a community of goods is perceptible 
and the idea that the rich man is obliged to share 
that wliich he has.f The poor appear already as those 
who should be beneficiaries in the first rank of the 
kingdom of God. 

Althongh the central point of John's action was in 
Judea, his fame soon penetrated into Galilee and 
reached Jesus, who had already formed about him by 
his first discourses a small circle of hearers. Enjoy- 
ing as yet little authority and doubtless desirous also 
to see a master whose teachings had so much in com- 
mon with his own ideas, Jesus left Galilee and went 
with his little school to visit John. J The new comers 
were baptized like every body else. John cordially 
welcomed this swarm of Galilean disciples, and was 
not displeased that they should remain distinct from 
his own. The two masters were young; they had 
many common ideas ; they loved each other and la- 
bored before the public with reciprocal good-will. 
Such a state of things surprises us at the first thought 
in regard to John the Baptist, and we are tempted to 
doubt it. Humility has never been the characteristic 
of strong souls among the Jews. It seems as though 

* Matt., IX, 14. t Luke, in, 11. 

X Matt., nr, 13 seqq. ; Mark, i, 9 seqq. ; Luke, in, 21 seqq. ; John, i, 29 seqq. ; iix , 
22seqq. The synoptics make Jesus come to John before his public life com- 
mences. But if it is true as they say, that John recognized Jesus at once, and 
gave him a great welcome, we must suppose that Jesus was already a master of 
(iome renown. The fourth Evangelist takes Jesus twice to John, once privately, 
a second time with a troop of disciples. Without touching here upon the question 
of the precise journeys of^ Jesus (a question which cannor be resolved in view of 
the contradictions of the documents, and the little care of the evangelists to be 
exact in such matters) . without denying that Je.-^us mij>ht have made a journey 
to John at a time when he was unknown, we adopt the datum furnished by the 
fourth evangelist (in , 22 seqq. ) to wit, that Jesus before he was baptized by John 
had a school formed. We must remember, moreover, that the first pages of the 
fourth evangelist are notes put together without rtgorous chronological order. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 125 

a character so inflexible, a sort of constantly irritated 
Lamennais, would be very ^Dassionate and suffer nei- 
ther rivalry nor partial adhesion. Bat this idea is 
based upon a false conception of the person of John. 
He is represented as an old man ; he was, on the con- 
trary, of the same age as Jesus,* and very young ac- 
cording to the notions of the times. He was not, in 
the order of mind, the father of Jesus, but only his 
brother. The two young enthusiasts, full of the same 
hopes and the same hates, might well make common 
cause and reciprocally support each other. Certainly au 
old master seeing a man without celebrity come to him 
and manifest airs of independence, would have revolt- 
ed at it ; there is hardly an example of the head of a 
school welcoming with cordiality him who was to suc- 
ceed him. But youth is capable of all abnegations, 
and we may believe that John, having recognized 
in Jesus a spirit kindred to his own, accepted him 
without sellish considerations. These pleasant relations 
became thenceforth the starting-point of the whole sys- 
tem developed by the evangelist, which consists in giv- 
ing as the first basis of the divine mission of Jesus, the 
attestation of John. Such was the degree of author- 
ity achieved by the Baptist that they thought no bet- 
ter voucher could be found in the world. But far from 
the Baptist abdicating before Jesus, Jesus, during the 
whole time that he spent with him, recognized him as 
his superior, and developed his own genius but timidly. 
It seems, indeed, that notwithstanding his profound 
originality, Jesus, during some weeks at least, was the 
imitator of John. His path was yet obscure before 

* Luke, I, although all the details of the story, especially that which con. 
cems the relationship of John with Jesus, are legendary. 



126 OEIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY.** 

him. At all epochs, moreover, Jesus yielded much 
to opinion, and even adopted things Which were not 
in his direction, or for which he had little regard, for 
the sole reason that thej were popular; only, these. 
accessories were never injurious to his principal idea 
and were always subordinate to it. Baptism had been 
brought by John into great favor; he thought himself 
obliged to do likewise ; he baptized and his disciples 
baptized also.* Undoubtedly they accompanied the 
baptism by sermons similar to those of John. The 
Jordan was thus covered on all sides with Baptists, 
whose discourses met with greater or less success. The 
pupil soon equaled the master, and his baptism was 
much sought. There was on this subject jealousy 
among the disciples ;f the disciples of John came and 
complained to him of the growing success of the 
young Galil^ean, whose baptism would soon, according 
to tliem, supplant his own. But the two masters were 
superior to these pettinesses. The superiority of John 
was, moreover, too incompatible for Jesus, as yet lit- 
tle known, to think of combatting it. He desired only 
to grow beneath his shadow, and thought himself 
obliged, in order to win the multitude, to employ 
the external means which had secured to John such 
astonishing success. When he began to preach after 
the arrest of John, the first words which are put into 
his mouth are only a repetition of one of the familiar 
phrases of the Baptist. :[: Many other expressions of John 
are repeated literally in his discourses.! The two 
schools appear to have lived a long time with a good 
mutual under8tanding§, and after the death of John, 

* John, III, 22-26; iv, 1-2. The parenthesis of verse 2 seema to be a comment 
added, or perhaps a tardy scruple of John correcting himself. 

f John,ni,26;iv,l. 1 Matt., in, 2 ;iv, 17. 

i Matt.,111. 7jxn,d4;X2UU,33. § Matt, xi, 2-13. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 127 

Jesiis, as his trusted brother, was one of the first to 
be informed of the event.* 

John, indeed, was very soon checked in his pro- 
phetic career. Like the ancient Jewish prophets, he 
was, in the highest degree, a railer at the established 
powers.f The extreme freedom with which he ex- 
pressed himself in their regard could not fail to create 
embarrassment to him. In Judea, John does not ap- 
pear to have been disturbed by Pilate ; but in Perea, 
beyond the Jordan, he was upon the territory of An- 
tipater. This tyrant was disquieted by the ill-dissem- 
bled political leaven of the preaching of John. The 
great gatherings of men created by religious and pa- 
triotic enthusiasm around the Baptist, were something 
suspicious.:]: A grievance entirely personal came, 
moreover, in addition to these motives of state, to seal 
the doom of the austere censor. 

One of the most strongly marked characters of that 
tragic family of Herods, was Herodias, granddaughter 
of Herod the Great. Yiolent, ambitious, and passion- 
ate, she detested Judaism and despised its laws, j She 
had been married, probably against her will, to her 
uncle Herod,§ son of Mariamne, whom Herod the 
Great had disinherited,T and who had never been a 
public character. The inferior position of her husband, 
compared with the other persons of his family, gave 
her no rest ; she would be a sovereign at any price.** 
Antipater was the instrument which she used. That 
feeble man, having become distractedly enamoured of 

* Matt. , XIV , 12. + Luke, ni, 19. 

t Jos. , Ard. , XVIII, V, 2. || Jos. , Ant. , XVIII, V, 4. 

§ Matthew (xiv, 3, in the Greek text) and Mark (vi,17) prefer Philip; but thia 
is certainly an inadvertence (see Josephus, Ant., XVIII, v, 1 and 4.) The wife 
of Philip was Salome, daughter of Herodias. 

«[ Jos., ^»<., XVII, IV, 2. ** Jo8.,^n<.,XVIII,vn,l,2;2?./.,II, rx,6. 



128 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

her, promised to espouse her and repudiate his first 
wife, the daughter of Hareth, King of Petra and Emir 
of the neighboring tribes of Perea. The Arab princess, 
having discovered the project, resolved to fly. Dis- 
sembling her design, she feigned a desire to visit Ma- 
chero, upon the territory of her father, and was con- 
ducted thither by the officers of Antipater.* Makaur,f 
or Machero, was a colossal fortress, built by Alexander 
Jannseiis, since rebuilt by Herod, in one of the most 
abrupt wadys on the east of the Dead Sea4 It was a 
wild region, strange, filled with fantastical legends, 
and was believed to be the haunt of demons. || The 
fortress was just on the line between the territories of 
Hareth and Antipater. It was now in the posses- 
sion of Hareth. § He had been forewarned, and had 
prepared everything for his daughter's flight, who, 
from tribe to tribe, was taken back to Petra. 

The almost incestuousT union of Antipater and He- 
rodias was then accomplished. The Jewish laws upon 
marriage were an incessant source of scandal between 
the irreligious family of the Herods and the strict Jews."^* 
The members of that numerous and rather isolated 
dynasty were reduced to the necessity of inter-mar- 
riage and frequent violations of the impediments pre- 
scribed by the Law were the result. John was the 
echo of the general opinion in liis energetic blame of 
Antipater.f f This was more than enough to decide 
Antipater to act upon his suspicions. He caused the 

* Jo8.,ArU.,XYlU,y,l. 

t This form is found in the Talmud of Jerusalem (SchMH, ix, 2) and in the 
Targums of Jonathan and of Jerusalem (Numbers, xxii, 35). 

X To-day Mkaur, in the wady Zerka Main. This place has not been visited 
since Seetzen. 

D Jo8.,Debell. Jud., VII, VI, 1 seqq. ^ Job, Ant., XVIII, v, 1. 

If Lev. , xviii, 16 ** Jos. , Ant. , XV, Vll, 10. 

ft Matt.,xiv,4;Mark,vi,18;Luke,in,19 



LIFE OF JESUS. 129 

Baptist to be arrested, and ordered that he be confined 
in the fortress of Machero, which he had probably 
seized after the departure of the daughter of Hareth.* 
Timid, rather than cruel, Antipater did not wish to 
put him to death. According to some reports, he 
feared a popular tumult.f According to another ver- 
sion, J he took pleasure in listening to the prisoner, and 
these conversations filled him with the greatest per- 
plexity. So much is certain, that the detention of 
John was prolonged, and that he continued to exert 
from the depths of his prison a wide-spread influence. 
He corresponded with his disciples, and we shall again 
find him in communication with Jesus. His faith in 
the near approach of Messiah became stronger than 
ever ; he followed attentively all movements without, 
and sought to discover in them signs favorable to the 
accomplishment of the hopes which supported him. 

♦ Jos. , Ant. , XVIII, V, 2. t Matt. , xiv, 6. 

1 Mark, VI, 20. I read ^-s-o^Si andnot ^^oiei. 



130 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER YII. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEAS OF JESUS C01fCBBNI2Ta 
THE KINGDOM OP GOD. 



Up to the arrest of John, which we place proxi- 
mately in the summer of the year 29, Jesus did not 
leave the vicinity of the Dead Sea and the Jordan. A 
sojourn in the desert of Judea was generally considered 
the preparation for great deeds, a sort of " retreat " 
before public acts. Jesus followed in this the example 
of others, and passed forty days, with no company but 
tke wild beasts, keeping a rigorous fast. The imagina- 
tion of his disciples was much exercised concerning 
this sojourn. The desert was, in the popular belief, 
the abode of demons.* There are few regions in the 
world more desolate, more God-forsaken, more closed 
against life than the stony slope which forms the wes- 
tern border of the Dead Sea. It was believed that 
during the time which he passed in this hideous coun- 
try, he suffered terrible temptations, that Satan had 
endeavored to terrify him with his illusions or cajole 
him with seductive promises, and that then the angels 
had come to serve him as a reward for his victory.f 

* 7o6i<. vin, 3; Luke, XI, 24. 

t Matt., IV, 1 seqq.; Mark, 1,12-13; Luke, iv, 1 seqq. Certainly the striking 
analog/ which these stories present to the analogous legends of the Vendidad 



LIFE OF JESUS. 131 

It was probably on coming fortli from tbe desert 
that Jesus was apprised of tbe arrest of John the Bap- 
tist. He had no further reason for a prolonged sojourn 
in a country in which he was almost a stranger. Per- 
haps he feared that he might be comprehended in the 
severities exercised in regard to John, and preferred 
not to expose himself at a time when, in view of the 
small celebrity which he had obtained, his death 
would not serve the progress of his ideas. He return- 
ed to Galilee,* his true country, matured by an im- 
portant experience and having developed in contact 
with a great man, very different from himself, the feel- 
ing of his originality. On the whole, the influence of 
John had been more injurious than useful to Jesus. 
It was a check in his developement ; everything goes 
to show that when he descended to the Jordan his 
ideas were superior to those of John, and that it was 
by a species of concession that he inclined for a mo- 
ment towards baptism. Perhaps if the Baptist, from 
whose authority he could with difficulty have with- 
drawn himself, had been left in freedom, he would not 
have been able to throw off the yoke of rites and of 
external practices, and in that case he would undoubt- 
edly have remained an unknown Jewish sectary ; for the 
world would not have abandoned one set of rites for 
another. Through the attraction of a religion disen- 
gaged from all external forms it is that Christianity 
has enchanted lofty souls. The Baptist once imprisoned, 
his school, was greatly diminished, and Jesus was re- 

(farg. XIX) B,nd to the Lalitavistara (ch. xvii,xviii, xxi) would indicate that they 
are myths only. But the meagre and concise recital of Mark, who here repre- 
eents evidently the original compilation, implies a real occurrence which baa 
since furnished the theme of legendary developments. 
♦ Matt., IV, 12; Mark, i, 14; Luke, iv, 14; John, iv, 3. 



132 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

stored to his own work. The only thing which he 
owed to John, was, to a certain extent, lessons in 
preaching and in popular agitation. From this time, 
in fact, he preached with much more force and im- 
pressed himself upon the multitude with authority.* 

It seems also that his sojourn with John, less by the 
action of the Baptist than by the natural progress of 
his own thought, greatly matured his ideas upon " the 
kingdom of heaven." His watch-word thenceforth is 
" good tidings," the announcement that the kingdom 
of God is at hand.f Jesus will no longer be a delight- 
ful moralist, aspiring to concentrate sublime lessons in 
a few brief and living aphorisms ; he is the transcen- 
dant revolutionist, who essays to renew the world 
from its deepest foundations, and to establish upon 
earth the ideal which he has conceived. " To await 
the kingdom of God," will be synonymous with being 
a disciple of Jesus.|| The words "kingdom of God" 
or " kingdom of heaven," as we have already said,J 
had long been familiar to the Jews. But Jesus gave 
them a moral sense, a social bearing, at which even the 
author of the Book of Daniel, in his apocalyptic en- 
thusiasm, hardly dared to glance. 

In the world as it is, it is evil which reigns, Satan 
is the "prince of this world,"§ and all obey him. The 
kings slay the prophets. The priests and the doctors 
do not that which they command others to do. The 
just are pei*secuted, and the peculiar portion of the 
good is to weep. The " world " is thus the enemy of 
God and his saints. T The day is at hand; for the 

* Matt., VII, 29; Mark, i, 22; Luke, it, 32. f Mark, i, 14-15. 

t Mark, xv, 43. | See above, p. 106-107. 

I John, XII, 31; xiv, 80; xvi, 11. Compare II Cor., iv, 4. EpJies.,ii, 2. 

\ John, 1, 10; vii, 7; xiv, 17, 22, 27; xv, 18 seqq. ; xvi, 8, 30,33; xvii, 9, 14, 16, 25. 
This meaning of the word " world" especially characterises the writings of Faol 
and John. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 133 

abomination is at its height. The reign of good shall 
have its turn. 

The coming of this reign of good will be a grand 
and sudden revolution. The world will seem to be 
overturned ; the present state of things being bad, in 
order to represent the future it sufficed to imagine near- 
ly the contrary of every thing in existence. The first 
shall be last.* A new order shall govern humanity. 
Now good and evil are mixed like tares and good 
grain in the field. The master permits them to grow to- 
gether ; but the hour of violent separation will come.f 
The kingdom of God will be like a great cast of the 
net, which gathers good and bad fish ; the good are 
placed in vessels, and the rest are cast away.:j: The 
germ of this grand revolution will be at first unrecog- 
nizable. It will be like a grain of mustard seed, 
which is the least of seeds, but which, cast into the 
earth, becomes a tree in the branches of which the 
birds come and lodge ;1 or again it will be like the 
leaven which, put into the dough, ferments the entire 
mass.§ A series of parables, often obscure, was de- 
signed to express the surprises of this sudden advent, 
its apparent injustice, its inevitable and definitive 
character.Tf 

Who will establish this reign of God ? Let us re- 
member that the first idea of Jesus, an idea so deep 
in him that it probably had no origin, but inhered in 
the very roots of his being, was that he was the son 
of God, the intimate of his Father, the executor of 
his will. The response of Jesus to such a question 

* Matt., XIX, 30; xx, 16; Mark, x, 31; Luke, xni, 30. 

I Matt., XIII, 24 seqq + Matt , xiii, 47 seqq 

I Matt , XIII, 31 seqq.; Mark, iv, 31 seqq.; Luke, xiii, 19 seqq. 

i Matt., xiii, 33; Luke, xiii, 21. 

\ Matt., XIII entire; xviii, 23 seqq.; xx, 1 seqq.; Luke, xiii, 18 seqq. 



134 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

could not therefore be doubtful. The conviction that 
he was to bring about the reign of God took absolute 
possession of his soul. He looked upon himself as the 
universal reformer. The heavens, the earth, all na- 
ture, madness, disease and death are only instruments 
to him. In his paroxysm of heroic will, be believes 
himself all powerful. If the earth does not yield to 
this supreme transformation, the earth will be ground 
to powder, purified by fire and the breath of God.* A 
new heaven will be created, and the whole world will 
be peopled by the angels of God. 

A radical revolution, f embracing even nature itself, 
such, then, was the fundamental idea of Jesus. Thence- 
forth, doubtless, he renounced politics; the example 
of Juda the Gaulonite had shown him the inutility of 
popular seditions. He never dreamed of revolt 
against the Romans or the tetrarchs. The unbridled 
and anarchical principle of the Gaulonite was not his. 
His submission to the established powers, derisive in 
reality, was complete in appearance. He paid tribute 
to Caesar in order not to cause scandal. Liberty and 
riofht are not of this world : wherefore trouble his life 
with idle susceptibilities? Despising the earth, con- 
vinced ihat the present world does not merit his care, 
he took refuge in his ideal kingdom ; he founded this 
grand doctrine of transcendant disdain,:]: the true doc- 
trine of the liberty of souls, which alone gives peace. 
But he had not yet said : '' My kingdom is not of this 
world.'' Gloomy thoughts were also mingled mth 
his justest views. At times strange temptations crossed 

* Matt.,xxn,30. 

t 'A'^oxaracJ'Tao'jj <7ravTWv. Acts, ui, 21. 

t Matt., XVII, 23-26; xxii, 16-22. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 135 

his spirit. In tlie desert of Judea, Satan had offered 
him the kingdoms of the earth. ISTot knowing the 
power of the Roman Empire, he might, upon the deep 
basis of enthusiasm which existed in Judea and which 
resulted soon after in such terrible military resistance, 
he might, I say, have hoped to found a kingdom by 
the boldness and the number of his partisans. Many 
times perhaps this supreme question was presented to 
him. Shall the kingdom of God be realized by force or 
by gentleness, by revolt or by patience ? One day, it 
is said, the simple people of Galilee wished to take 
him and make him a king.* Jesus fled into the moun- 
tain and remained there some time alone. His beauti- 
ful nature preserved him from the mistake which 
would have made him an agitator or a rebel chief, a 
Theudas or a Barkokeba. 

The revolution which he desired to bring about was 
always a moral revolution ; but he was not yet ready 
to rely for its execution upon the angels and the final 
trump. It was upon men and by men themselves that he 
desired to act. A visionary who had no other idea than 
the proximity of the last judgment would not have 
had this care for the amelioration of man, and would 
never have founded the most beautiful moral teaching 
that humanity has received. Much uncertainty re- 
mained doubtless in his thought, and a noble senti- 
ment, rather than a fixed design, urged him to the 
sublime work which has been realized by him, al- 
though in a manner far different from that which he 
imagined. 

It is indeed the kingdom of God, or rather the 
kingdom of the spirit, which he founded, and if 

* John, VI, 15. 



136 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Jesus, from the bosom of his Father, sees his work 
fructifying in history, he can well say with truth : 
"Lo! that which I desired." "What Jesus has es- 
tablished, what will remain eterually his, aside from the 
imperfections which mingle with everything realized 
by humanity, is the doctrine of the liberty of souls. 
Already Greece had presented upon this subject fine 
ideas.* Many stoics had found means of being free 
under a tyrant. But, in general, the ancient world had 
imagined liberty as connected witli certain political 
forms ; the liberals were called Harmodius and Aris- 
togiton, Brutus and Cassius. The true Christian is far 
more free from every chain ; he is here below an ex- 
ile ; what to him is the temporary master of this earth 
which is not his home ? Liberty for him is truth. -f 
Jesus did not know enough of history to comprehend 
how exactly such a doctrine filled the need of the 
time just when republican liberty was ending, and 
the small municipal constitutions of antiquity were 
expiring in the unity of the Roman empire. But his 
admirable good sense and the truly prophetic instinct 
which he had of his mission, guided him here with 
marvelous safety. By this expression : " Bender to 
Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the 
things are God's," he has created something beyond 
politics, a refuge for souls in the midst of the empire 
of brutal force. Assuredly such a doctrine had its 
dangers. To establish in principle that the sign by 
which to recognize the legitimate power is to look at 
a coin, to proclaim that the perfect man pays his tax 
disdainfully and without discussion, was to destroy the 

• V. Stobaeus, FlcriUgivm, ch. lxii, lxxvii, lxxxvi seqq. 
t John, VIII, 32 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 1ST 

republic in its ancient form and to favor all tyran- 
nies. Christianity, in this sense, has largely contribut- 
ed to weaken the sentiment of duty among citizens and 
to deliver the world over to the absolute power of ac- 
complished facts. But in constituting an immense 
free association which, for three hundred years, had 
nothing to do with politics, Christianity amply com- 
pensated for the injury which it inflicted upon the 
civic virtues. The power of the state was limited to 
the things of earth, the soul was enfranchised, or at 
least the terrible fasces of E-oman omnipotence were 
broken forever. 

The man who is entirely absorbed in the duties of 
public life never pardons those who put anything above 
the struggles of party. He especially blames those 
who subordinate political to social questions, and pro- 
fess for the former a species of indifference. In one 
sense he is right, for every exclusive direction is preju- 
dicial to the good government of human affairs. But 
what progress in the general morality of the race have 
parties produced ? Had Jesus, instead of founding his 
heavenly kingdom, gone to Home, worn himself out in 
conspiring against Tiberius, or bewailing Germanicus, 
what would have become of the world ? As an aus- 
tere republican, a zealous patriot, he would not have 
stopped the grand tide of affairs in his century, while 
in declaring politics insignificant, he revealed to the 
world the truth that country is not everything, and 
that the man is anterior and superior to the citizen. 

Our principles of positive science are offended by 
the fancies which are included in the programme of 
Jesus. We know the history of the earth ; cosmical 
revolutions of the kind which Jesus expected, are pro- 



138 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

diiced onl}' by geological or astronomical causes, the 
connection of which with moral powers has never been 
established. But, to be just towards great creators, we 
must not pause at the prejudices which they may have 
shared. Columbus discovered America in consequence 
of very erroneous ideas ; ]^ewton thought his crazy 
exposition of the Apocalypse as certain as his system 
of the world. Do we rank any average man of our 
time above a Francis d'Assisi, a Saint Bernard, a Joan 
of Arc, or a Luther, because lie is free from the errors 
which they believed ? Would we measure men by 
the correctness of their ideas in Physics, and their 
more or less exact knowledge of the true system of the 
world ? Let us comprehend better the position of 
Jesus and the nature of his power. The deism of the 
xviiith century and a certain kind of Protestantism 
have accustomed us to consider the founder of the 
Christian faith only as a great moralist, a benefactor of 
humanity. We no longer see in the Gospel anything 
more than good maxims ; we cast a prudent vail over 
the strange intellectual condition into which he was 
born. There are people who regret also that the 
French Revolution was in many things a departure 
from principles, and that it had not been conducted 
by wise and moderate men. Let us not impose our 
petty programmes of common-sense respectability upon 
these extraordinary movements so far above our pitch. 
Let us continue to admire the "morality of the Gos- 
pel ;" let us suppress in our religious instructions the 
chimera which was its soul ; but let us not believe that 
with simple ideas of happiness or of individual moral- 
ity the world can be moved. The idea of Jesus was 
far more profound; it was the most revolutionary idea 



LIFE OF JESUS. 139 

which was ever evolved from a human brain ; it must 
be taken in its completeness, and not with those timid 
suppressions which rob it precisely of that which has 
rendered it efficacious for the regeneration of humanity. 

At bottom, the ideal is always a Utopia. To day, when 
we desire to represent the Christ of the modern con- 
science, the consoler, the judge of the new epoch,what 
is it that we do? What Jesus himself did 1830 years 
ago. We suppose the conditions of the real world to- 
tally different from what they are ; we represent a 
moral liberator breaking without weapons the chains 
of the negro, ameliorating the condition of the poor, 
delivering oppressed nations. We forget that this 
supposes the world reversed, the climate of Yirginia 
and that of Congo modified, the blood and the race of 
millions of men changed, our social complications re- 
duced to a chimerical simplicity, the political stratifi- 
cations of Europe thrown out of their natural order. 
The "restitution of all things ''* desired by Jesus, was 
not more difficult. That new earth, that new heaven, 
that new Jerusalem which descends from heaven, that 
cry, " Behold, I make all things new !"f are the common 
characteristics of reformers. Forever will the contrast 
of the ideal with the sad reality produce in humanity 
those revolts against cold reason, which common minds 
call madness, until the day of their triumph, when 
those who have combatted them are the first to ac- 
knowledge their lofty wisdom. 

That there was a contradiction between the belief in 
the speedy destruction of the world and the habitual 
moral philosophy of Jesus, conceived in view of a sta- 
ble condition of humanity, broadly analogous to that 

• Adlf 1X1, 21. t Rtm.j xxi, 1, 2, 5. 



140 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

which now exists, none will attempt to deny.* It was 
just this contradiction which assured the success of his 
work. The raillennarian alone would have possessed 
no power. The millennarianism gave the impulsion, 
the morality secured the future. In this way, Chris- 
tianity united the two conditions of great success in 
this world, a revolutionary starting-point, and the pos- 
sibility of life. Everything which is made to succeed, 
must respond to these two needs ; for the world de- 
mands at the same time to change and to endure. 
Jesus, while he announced an unparalleled revolution 
in human affairs, proclaimed the principles upon which 
society has reposed for the last eighteen hundred years. 
That which indeed distinguishes Jesus from the agi- 
tators of his time and from those of all ages, is his 
perfect idealism. Jesus, in some respects, is an anar- 
chist, for he has no idea of civil government. This 
government seems to him purely and simply an abuse. 
He speaks of it in vague terms, and like a man of the 
people who had no idea of polity. Every magistrate 
appears to him the natural enemy of the men of God ; 
he announces to his disciples contests with the author- 
ities, without dreaming for a moment that they might 
give cause for shame.f But never does the temptation 
to substitute himself for the powerful and the rich ap- 
pear in him. He desired to annihilate riches and 
power, but not to seize them. He predicts to his dis- 
ciples persecutions and punishments;:]: but he did not 
once permit himself to entertain the thought of armed 

* The millennarian sects of England present the same contrast, I mean the 
belief in a speedy destrnction of the world, and nevertheless much good sense in 
the practicalities of life, — an extraordinary attention to commercial and indus- 
trial affairs. t Matt., x, 17-18: Luke, xii, 11. 

t Matt., V, lOseqq.; x entire; Luke, Yi,22seqq.; John,xv, ISseqq.; xvi,2 
8eqq.,20,33;xvn,14. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 141 

resistance. The idea of omnipotence thrcugh suffer- 
ing and resignation, of triumphing over force by purity 
of heart, is indeed an idea peculiar to Jesus. Jesus 
was not a spiritualist, for everything to him resulted 
in a palpable realization ; he lias not the least notion 
of a soul separate from the body. But he is a perfect 
idealist, the material to him being only the sign of the 
idea, and the real, the living expression of that which 
does not appear. 

To whom should he address himself, upon whom re- 
ly to found the kingdom of God ? The mind of Jesus 
in this never hesitated. What is high to men is an 
abomination in the eyes of God.* The founders of 
the kingdom of God shall be the simple. No rich, no 
doctors, no priests ; women, men of the people, the 
humble, the little ones.f The great sign of the Mes- 
siah is " the gospel preached to the poor.":j: The 
gentle and idyllic nature of Jesus here resumes the as- 
cendant. An immense social revolution in which 
ranks shall be inverted, in which all that is authorita- 
tive in this world shall be humbled, such is his dream. 
The world will not believe him ; the world will kill 
him. But his disciples will not be of the world. || 
They will be a little flock of the humble and the sim- 
ple, who will conquer by their very humility. The 
sentiment which has made of "worldling" the antith- 
esis of " Christian," has in the thoughts of the master 
its complete justification. § 

* Luke, XVI, 16 

t Matt., V, 3, 10; xvrii, 3; xix, 14, 23-24; xxi, 31; xxti, 2 seqq., Mark, x, 14-15, 
23-25- Luke, iv, 18 seqq.; vi, 20: xvili, 16-17; 24-25. 

t Matt., XI, 5. II John, xr, 19; xvii, 14, 16. 

5 Sec especially the seventeenth chapter of St. John, expressing, if not a real 
discourse delivered by Jesus, at least a feeling which was very deep among his 
diaciples, and which certainly came from him. 



142 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTEK YIll. 



JESUS AT CAPERNAUM, 



Possessed by an idea more and more imperious and 
exclusive, Jesus will henceforth advance with a kind 
of impassible fatality along the path which his aston- 
ishing genius and the extraordinary circumstances in 
which he lived had marked out for him. Thus far he 
had communicated his thoughts only to a few persons 
attracted to him privately ; henceforth his teaching 
becomes public and popular. He was scarcely thirty 
years of age.* The little group of hearers who had 
accompanied him to John the Baptist had doubtless in- 
creased, and perhaps some of John's disciples had j oined 
him.f It is with this first nucleus of a Church that he 
boldly announces, on his return into Galilee, the " good 
tidings of the kingdom of God." That kingdom was 
at hand, and he, Jesus, was that '^ Son of man " whom 
the prophet Daniel had perceived in his vision as the 
divine executor of the final and supreme revelation. 

"We must remember that, in the ideas of the Jews, 
antipathetic to art and mythology, the simple form of 
man was superior to that of the cherubs^ and the fan- 

* Luke, III, 23; gospel of the Eblonim, in Epiph., Adv. hcer., xxx, 13. 
t John, I, 37 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 143 

tastic animals, wliicli the imagination of the people, 
since it had been subjected to the influence of Assyria, 
supposed to be ranged around the divine Majesty. Al- 
ready in Ezekiel,* the being seated upon the supreme 
throne, far above the monsters of the mysterious char- 
iot, the great revelator of the prophetic visions has the 
likeness of a man. In the Book of Daniel, in the midst 
of the vision of empires represented by animals, just as 
the sitting of the great judgment commences and the 
books are opened, a being *' like the son of man " ad- 
vances towards the Ancient of days, who confers on 
him the power to judge the world, and to govern it 
forever.f Son of man is in the Semitic languages, 
especially in the Aramsean dialects, simply a synonym 
of man. But this great passage of Daniel struck the 
imagination ; the word son of man became, at least in 
certain schools,:]: one of the titles of the Messiah por- 
trayed as the judge of the world and as king of the 
new era which was about to open.|| The application 
which Jesus made of it to himself was therefore the 
proclamation of his Messiahship and the declaration 
of the speedy catastrophe in which he was to appear as 
judge, clothed with the full powers which had been 
delegated to him by the Ancient of days.g 

The success of the preaching of the new prophet 
was now decided. A group of men and women, all 
characterized by a common spirit of youthful candor 
and artless innocence, adhered to him and said : " Thou 

♦ I, 5, 26 aeqq. t Daniel, vii, 13-14. Comp. viii, 15; x, 16. 

t Tn John, xii, 34, the Jews do not seem to be aware of this sense of the word. 

I Book of Enoch, xlvi, 1, 2, 3; XLvm, 2, 3; i,xn, 9, 14; lxx, 1 (division of Dill- 
man); Matt, x, 23; xni,41; XVI, 27-28; xix,28; xxiv, 27, 30, 37, 39, 44; xxv, 31; 
XXVI, 64; Mark, XIII, 26; XIV, 62-j Luke, xii, 40jxvii, 24, 26, 30; xxi, 27, 36; xxii, 
69 ; Jlcte, VII , 55. But the most significant passage is John v, 27 , compared with Rev. , 
1 , 13, XIV , 14. The expression ' ' Son of woman' ' for the Messiah ia fouad once in 
the Book of Enoch, lxii , 5. § John, v, 22, 27. 



144 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

art the Messiah." As the Messiah must be the son of 
David, they naturally gave him that title, which was 
a synonym of the first. Jesus permitted it to be given 
him with pleasure, although it caused him some em- 
barrassment, his birth being well known. For his 
own part, the title which he preferred was that of 
"Son of man," a title apparently humble, but one 
which attached itself directly to the expectations of a 
Messiah. It is by this expression that he designates 
himself,* so much so that in his mouth " the Son of 
man" was synonymous with the pronoun '^ I " which 
he avoided using. But he is never thus addressed, 
doubtless because the name in question could be fully 
accorded to him only at the period of his second coming. 
The center of activity of Jesus, at this epoch of 
his life, was the little city of Capernaum, situated upon 
the border of the Lake of Gennesareth. The name 
of Capernaum into the composition of which enters 
the word caphar^ " village," seems to designate a small 
straggling town of the ancient style, in opposition to 
the great cities built according to the Roman fashion, 
like Tiberias.f This name was so little known, that 
Josephus in one passage of his writings,:]: took it for 
the name of a fountain, the fountain being more cele- 
brated than the village which was situated near it. 
Like Nazareth, Capernaum had no history, and had in 
nowise participated in the unhallowed progress favor- 
ed by the Herods. Jesus attached himself very close- 
ly to this town and made it a second home.l Soon af- 

* This title occurs eighty -three times in the Gospels, and always in the dif- 
courses of Jesus. 

+ It is true that Tell-Hum, which is ordinarily identified with Capernaum, 
offers ruins of very fine monuments. But, besides that the identification is 
doubtful, these monuments appear to be of the second and third centuriea 
aft«r Christ. 

X B. J., Ill, X, 8. I Matt., IX, 1- Mark, ii, 1. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 145 

ter his return, he had made an effort at E"azareth 
which was unsuccessful.* He could there do no 
m'lghtj work, according to the naive remark of one of 
his biographers.f The acquaintance of the Kazarenes 
with his family, which was of little note, was too inju- 
rious to his authority. They could not regard as the 
son of David one whose brother, sister and brother-in- 
law they saw every day. It is remarkable, moreover, 
that his family made strenuous opposition to him, and 
flatly refused to believe in his mission. :[: The citizens, 
far more violent, desired, it is said, to kill him by 
casting him headlong from a steep cliff. || Jesus aptly 
remarked that this experience was the common lot of 
all great men, and applied to himself the proverb : 
" No man is a prophet in his own country." 

This failure was far from discouraging him. He re- 
turned to Capernaum, § where he organized a series of 
visits to the little villages around. The people of that 
beautiful and fertile country were scarcely ever united 
except on Saturday. He chose this day for his teach- 
ings. Each village had then its synagogue or place 
of meeting. This was a rectangular hall, rather small, 
with a portico, decorated with the Grecian orders. 
The Jews having no distinctive architecture, had nev- 
er attempted to give to their edifices an original style. 
The ruins of many ancient synagogues still exist in 
Galilee.^ They are all constructed of large and good 
materials ; but their style is very mean on account of 

• Matt. , XIII, 64 geqq ; Mark, vi, 1 seqq. ; Luke, rv, 16 seqq. ; 23-24; John, rv, 44. 

iMark, vi, 5. Comp. Matt.,xix, 58; Luke, iv, 23. 
Matt., xm, 67; Mark, vi, 4; John, vii, 3 seqq. 
Luke, IV, 29. Probably reference is here made to the precipitous rock quite 
near Nazareth, above the present church of the Maronites, and not to the pre- 
tended Mount of Precvpiiation, at an hour's distance from N azareth. See Robinson , 
II. 335 eeqq. § Matt., iv, 13; Luke, iv, 31, 

*i At Tell-Hum, at Irbid (Arbela), at Meiron (Mero) , at Jisch (Gi8cala),at 
Kasyoun, at Nabartein, and two at Kefr-Bereim. 

7 



146 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

that profusion of vegetable ornaments, of foliage and 
of twists wliicli cliaracterizes Jewish monuments.* In 
the interior, there were benches, a chair for the public 
reading, a closet to keep the sacred scroHs.f These 
edifices, which had nothing in common with the tem- 
ple, were the center of all the Jewish life. The peo- 
ple assembled there on the Sabbath day for prayer and 
the reading of the Law and the Prophets. As Juda- 
ism, out of Jerusalem, had no clergy proper, any per- 
son arose, read the lessons of the day {parascha and 
haphtara), and added to this a midrasch or com- 
mentary, entirely personal, in which he set forth his 
peculiar ideas.:]: This was the origin of the " homily," 
of which we find the complete model in the small 
treatises of Philo. Any one had the right to make ob- 
jections and to question the reader ; so the congre- 
gation soon degenerated into a sort of free assembly. 
It had a president,! " elders,"§ a hazzan^ appointed read- 
er or beadle,^ " envoys,"** a species of secretaries or 
messengers who carried on the correspondence be- 
tween one synagogue and another, and a schammasch 
or sacristan.f f The synagogues were thus in fact little 



* I dare not yet pronounce upon the age of these monuments, nor consequent- 
ly affirm that Jesus taught in any of them . What interest would not be attached 
to the synagogue of Tell-Hum on such &\\ hypothesis ! The great synagogue of 
Kefr-Bereim seems to me the oldest of all. It is quite pure in its style. That of 
Kasyoun bears a Greek inscription of the time of Septimus Severus. The great 
importance which Judaism assumed in Upper Galilee after the Roman war leads 
us to believe that many of these edifices date back only to the third century , when 
Tiberias became the capital of Judaism. 

fir Esdr. , VIII , 4 ; Matt. , xxiii , o ; Jas. , ii , 3 ; Mischna . Megilla, iii , 1 ; Eosch hasschana, 
IV, 1, etc. See especially the curious description of the synagogue of Alexandria in 
the Babylonish Talmud, Sulcka, 51, b. 

X Philo, cited in Eusebius, Prcep. evarig. , viii, 7 ; and Quod omnis prdbus liber, § 12; 
Luke, IV, 16; Acts, xiii, 15; xv, 21; Mischna, Megilla, in, 4 seqq. 

^ 'Tir^^^STTig. ** 'A'tToV-toXoi or ayysXoi. 

tt AlOLXOVOS. Mark, V, 22, 35 seqq. ; Luke, iv, 20; vii, 3; viii, 41,49; xm, 14; 
Acts, XIII, 15; xviii, 8, 17; Bev., ii, 1, Mischna, Joma, vii, 1; Bosch hassduina, vr, 9; 
Talm. Jerus., Sanhedrin, i, 7; Epiph., Adv. har., xxx, 4. 11. 



LIFE OF JESUS. I 147 

independent republics; they had an extended juris- 
diction. Like all municipal corporations up to an ad- 
vanced period of the Roman Empire, they made hon- 
orary decrees,* adopted resolutions having the force 
of law over the community, pronounced sentence for 
penal offences, the executor of which was ordinarily 
the hazzan.\ 

With the extreme activity of mind which always 
characterized the Jews, such an institution, notwith- 
standing the arbitrary severities which it permitted, 
could not fail to occasion very animated discussions. 
Thanks to the synagogues, Judaism has been able to 
preserve itself intact through eighteen centuries of 
persecution. They were so many little worlds apart, 
in which the national spirit was preserved, and which 
offered to intestine struggle a field ready prepared. 
There was expended an enormous amount of passion. 
Disputes of precedence were intense among them. To 
have a seat of honor in the first row was Xhe. recom- 
pense of a lofty piety, or the privilege of the rich 
which was most envied.J On the other hand, the 
liberty, accorded to whomsoever chose to take it, of 
constituting himself the reader and commentator of 
the sacred text, gave wonderful facilities for the prop- 
agation of new ideas. This was one of the great op- 
portunities of Jesus and the means which he employed 
most habitually to establish his doctrinal teaching.! 
He entered the synagogue, and rose to read ; the has- 

• Inscription of Berenice, in the Corpus inscr.grax.^TSo. 5361 ; inscription of Kas- 
youn , in the Mission de Phenicie, book IV [in press]. 

t Matt., V, 2.5; x, 17 ; xxin, 34; Mark, xiii, 9; Luke, xn. 11, xxi, 12; Acts, xxii,19, 
XXVI, 11; II Cor., XI, 24; Mischna, Maccoth, ni, 12: Talm. de Bab. , Meailla, 7 6: 
Epiph.,^dij. /wer ,xxx,ll. » J^ . » 

± Matt., xxin, 6; James, II, 3; TaAm. B&h., Svkka, 51, b. 

I Matt., IV, 23; IX, 35; Mark, 1,21, 39;vi, 2; Luke, IV, 15, 16,31, 44:xnr, 10: John, 
xvni,20. ' ' 



I 



148 fRIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Ban handed him the book, he unrolled it, and reading 
the jparaso ha ov the haphtara of the day, drew from 
that lesson some development conformable to his 
ideas.* As there were few Pharisees in Galilee, the 
discussion against him did not assume that degree of in- 
tensity and that acrimonious t@ne which, at Jerusalem, 
would have stopped him short at the first step. The good 
Galileans had never heard discourse so adapted to their 
cheerful imaginations.f They admired him, they car- 
essed him, they believed that he spoke well and that 
his reasons were convincing. The most difficult ob- 
jections he resolved with authority ; the charm of his 
speech yand of his person captivated these people still 
young and not withered by the pedantry of the doctors. 

The authority of the young master thus went on in- 
creasing day by day, and, naturally, the more others 
believed in him, the more he believed in himself. His 
sphere of action was quite limited. It was entirely 
confined to the basin of Lake Tiberias, and even in 
this basin it had a favorite region. The lake is twelve 
or fifteen miles long, by eight or ten broad ; although 
presenting the appearance of a regular oval, it forms 
from Tiberias to the entrance of the Jordan, a kind of 
bay, the curve of which measures about eight miles. 
Here was the field in which the seed which Jesus 
sowed found at length the earth well prepared. Let 
us go over it step by step, endeavoring to lift the 
mantle of barrenness and death with which the demon 
of Islam has covered it. 

On leaving Tiberias, We find at first rocky clifi*s, a 
mountain which seems cruinbling into the sea. Then 

• Luke, rv, 16 seqq. Comp. Mischna, Joma, vii, 1. 

f Matt., Tii, 28; xiii. 54; Mark, i, 22; yi, 1; Luke, iv, 22, 32. 



LIFE OF JESUS. , 149 

the mountains trend away ; a plain {El-Ohoueir) opens 
almost at the level of the lake. This is a delightful 
grove of high verdure, furrowed by abundant v^raters, 
which come in part from a large round basin of an- 
tique construction {Ain-Medawara). At the entrance 
of this plain, which is the country of Genesaret pro- 
per, is found the miserable village of Medjdel, At 
the other end of the plain (still following the sea) the 
site of a village is encountered {Khan-Minyeh\ very 
fine fountains {Ain-et-Tin), a good road, straight and 
deep, cut in the rock, which Jesus certainly often trod, 
and which is the passage between the plain of Genes- 
aret and the northern slope of the lake. A mile fur- 
ther on, we cross a little salt-water river {Ain-Tabiga) 
flowing out of the earth by several large springs a few 
steps from the lake, which it enters in the midst of a 
thicket of verdure. Finally, two miles beyond, upon 
the arid slope which extends from Ain-Tabiga to the 
mouth of the Jordan, a few huts and a cluster of rather 
massive ruins are found, called Tell-Hum, 

Five little cities, of which men will speak forever, 
as much as of Rome or Athens, were, in the time of 
Jesus, scattered over the space which extends from the 
village of Medjdel to Tell-Hum. Of these five vil- 
lages, Magdala, Dalmanutha, Capernaum, Bethsaida, 
and Chorazin,* the first only can now be identified 
with certainty. The wretched village of Medjdel 
doubtless preserves the name and the place of the lit- 
tle market town which gave to Jesus his most faithful 
friend. f Dalmanutha was probably near hy.X It is 
not impossible that Chorazin was a little inland to the 

* The ancient Kinnereth had disappeared or changed its name. 
f It is known that it was in fact very near Tiberias. Talm. Jerus. , Maasaroth, 
in,l; Schdnit, IX, l;Erubin,v,T . J Mark, viii, 10. Comp. Matt., xv,39. 



150 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

north.* As to Bethsaida and Oapernaura,it is in truth 
entirely by conjecture that they are located at Tell- 
Hum, at Ain-et-Tiii, at Khan-Minyeh, at Ain-Meda- 
wara."*" It would seem that in topography, as in history, 
there has been a profound design to conceal the traces 
of the great founder. It is doubtful whether we shall 
ever succeed, amid this complete devastation, in identi- 
fying the places to which humanity would fain come 
to kiss the imprints of his feet. 

The lake, the horizon, the shrubs, the flowers, these 
are all that remain of the little region of eight or ten 
miles in which Jesus founded his divine work. The 
trees have totally disappeared. In this country, where 
the vegetation was jbrmerly so brilliant that Josephus 
saw in it a sort of miracle, — nature, according to him, 
being pleased to collect here, side by side, the plants 
of the cold latitudes, the productions of the torrid 
zones, and the trees of the temperate climes, burdened 
all the year with flowers and fruit ;:[: — in this country, I 
say, the traveler now calculates a day in advance the 
spot in which he may find on the morrow a little shade 
for his repast. The lake has become deserted. A sin- 
gle bark, in the most miserable condition, plows to-day 
these waves once so rich in life and joy. But the waters 
are still light and transparent. [ The beach, composed 

* At the place named Korazi or Bir-TcerazcTi, above Tell-Hum. 

f The ancient hypothesis which identified Tell-Hum with Capernanm, although 
strongly attacked for several years past, has yet numerous defenders. The best 
argument which can be made in its lavor is the name itself of Teil-Hum, Tell en- 
tering into the name of many villages, and possibly replacing Caphar. It is im- 
possible, on the other hand, to find near Tell-Hum a fountain corresponding t/> 
what Josephus says {B. J. , III, x, 8) . This fountain of Capernaum seems likely 
to be Ain-Mcdawara; but Ain-Medawara is two miles from the lake, while Ca- 
pernaum was a village of fishermen upon the border of the sea (Matt, iv, 13; 
John, vi, 17). The difficulties in regard to Bethsaida are still greater; for the 
hypothesis so generally admitted of two Bethsaidas, one upon the western and 
the other upon the eastern shore of the lake, six or eight miles apart, is a strange 
one. J J5. X, III, x,8. 

I B. J., Ill, X, 7; James de Vitri, in the Gesla Dei per Francos, 1, 1075. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 151 

of rocks or of pebbles, is almost that of a little sea, not 
that of a pond, like the shore of Lake Huleh. It is 
clean, neat, without mud, always beaten at the same 
level by the slight movement of the waves. Little 
promontories, covered with oleanders, tamarind trees, 
and the prickly caper, complete the outline. At two 
places especially, at the egress of the Jordan, near Ta- 
richoea and at the border of the plain of Genesaret, 
there are intoxicating parterres, where the waves die 
away amid clumps of grass and flowers. The brook of 
Ain-Tabiga forms a little estuary full of pretty shell- 
fish. Clouds of swimming birds cover the lake. The 
horizon is sparkling with light. The water, of a celes- 
tial azure, deeply encased between frow^ning rocks, 
seems, when viewed from the summit of the mountains 
of Safed, to be in the bottom of a cup of gold. To the 
north, the snowy ravines of Hermon stand out in white 
lines against the sky ; on the east, the high undulating 
plains of the Gaulonitis and of Persea, completely arid, 
and clothed by the sun in a species of velvety atmo- 
sphere, form a continuous mountain-range, or rather a 
long, elevated terrace, which, from Csesarea Philippi, 
trends indefinitely towards the south. 

The heat upon the borders is now very oppressive. 
The lake occupies a depression of six hundred feet be- 
low the level of the Mediterranean,* and thus shares 
the torrid conditions of the Dead Sea.f An abundant 
vegetation formerly tempered these excessive heats ; it 
is difiicult to comprehend that such an oven as the 
whole basin of the lake now is, from the month of May, 

* This is the estimate of Capt. Lynch (in Kitter, Erd-kunde, XV., 1st part, p. 
xx) . It accords nearly with that of M. de Bertou (Bulletin de la Soc. da Geogr., 
2nd series, XII., p. 146) 

t The depression of the Dead Seals twice as great. 



152 ORIGINS OP CHRISTIANITY. 

was ever the scene of such extraordinary activity. 
Josephus, moreover, considers the country very tem- 
perate.* Doubtless there has been here, as in the 
Roman campagna, some change of climate, brought 
about by historical causes. It is Islamism, especially 
the Moslem reaction against the crusades, which has 
blasted, like a sirocco of death, the region favored of 
Jesus. The beautiful land of Genesaret did not sus- 
pect that beneath the brow of this peaceful wayfarer, 
her destinies were swaying. A dangerous compatriot, 
Jesus was fatal to the country which had the peril- 
ous honor of producing him. Become to all an object 
of love or of hate, envied by two rival fanaticisms, 
Galilee, as the price of its glory, was to be changed 
into a desert. But who would say that Jesus had been 
happier had he lived to the full age of man, obscure 
in his native village ? And who would think of these 
ingrate IN'azarenes, if, at the risk of compromising the 
future of their little town, one of them had not recog- 
nized his Father, and proclaimed himself son of God. 

Four or five large villages, situated two or three 
miles apart, this then, was the little world of Jesus, at 
the period at which we have arrived. It does not ap- 
pear that he was ever at Tiberias, a city altogether 
profane, inhabited in great part by pagaas and the ha- 
bitual residence of An tipater.f Sometimes, however, 
he left his favorite region. He went in a boat to the 
eastern shore, to Gergesa for example.:]: Towards the 

* B. J.y III, X, 7 and 8. t Jos-> -*««■ . XVIII, ii, 3; Vita, 12, 13, 64. 

% I adopt the opinion of Mr. Thomson (the Land and the Book, II, 84, seqq.), 
according to whom the Gergesa of Matthew (vin, 28), identical with the Ca- 
naanite village of Girgasch (Gen., x, 16, xv, 21 ; Deut., vii, 1 ; Josh., xxiv, 11), is 
the place now called Kersa or Gerda on the eastern shore, nearly opposite Mag- 
dala. Mark (v, 1) and Luke (viii,26)say Gadara or Gerasa in lieu of Gerge?a. 
Gerasa is an impossible reading, the evangelists apprising us that the village in 
question was near the lake and opposite Galilee. Aa to Gadara, now Om-Keis, 



LIFE OF JESdS. 158 

north, we behold him at Paneas, Csesarea Philippi,* 
at the foot of Hermon. Once, indeed, he made a 
journey towards Tyre and Sidon,f a country which 
must then have been marvelously flourishing. In all 
these regions he was in the full sweep of paganism. :j: 
At Csesarea, he saw the celebrated grotto of the Pan- 
ium^ in which the source of the Jordan was placed, 
and which the popular belief surrounded with strange le- 
gends ;|| he could behold the marble temple which 
Herod had built near this in honor of Augustus ;§ he 
probably stopped before the many votive statues to 
Pan, to the Nymphs, to the Echo of the grotto, which 
piety had already accumulated in this beautiful place. T 
An Evhemerist Jew, accustomed to regard strange gods 
as divinized men or as demons, must liave considered 
all these figured representations as idols. To the se- 
ductions of the naturalistic worships, which intoxicated 
the more sensitive races, he was insensible. He had 
not probably any knowledge that the old sanctuary of 
Melkarth at Tyre, still contained something of a primitive 
worship more or less analogous to that of the Jews."^* 
Paganism, which, in Phoenicia, had reared on every 
hill a temple and a sacred grove, all this appearance of 
great industry and of worldly riches,tf could have had 
little charm for him. Monotheism takes away all abil- 

six miles from the lake and the Jordan, the local circumstances gtven by Mark 
and Luke hardly admit of it. It must be understood besides, that Gergesa may 
have become Gerasa, a name much more known, and that the topographical 
impossibilities presented by this last reading may have caused the adoption of 
Gadara. Cf Orig., Comment, in Joann., VI, 24; X, 10; Eusebius and St. Jerome, 
De situ et nomin. loc. hebr. , at the words TsP'yS(fa^ Tepyacfsi. 

* Matt., XVI, 13 ; Mark, viii, 27. 

t Matt. XV, 21; Mark vii, 24, 31. X Jos- '^'^^ 13. 

J Jos., Ant., XV, X, 3; B. J. I, xxi, 3; III, x 7; Benjamin de Tudela, p. 46,Edlt 
ABhcr. 

ks Jos. , Ani. , XV, X, 3. }\ Corpus inscr. gr. , Nos. 4537, 4538, 4538, 6, 4539. 

•* Lucianus (ut fertur) , Dedea syria, 3. 

j-j- Traces of the rich pagan civilization of this time yet cover all the Beled-Be- 
flcnarrah, especially the mountains which form the g cup of Cape Blanc and of 
Cap« !Nakoura. 



154 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY, 

ity to comprehend the pagan religions ; the Mussulman 
thrown into polytheistic countries, seems to have no 
eyes. Jesus, without doubt, learned nothing in these 
voyages. He returned again to his well-loved shore 
of Genesaret. The centre of his thoughts was there; 
there he found faith and love. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 155 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE DISCIPLES OF JESFS. 

In this terrestial paradise, which the great revolu- 
tions had thus far but little affected, dwelt a population 
in perfect harmony with the country itself, active, 
honest, living a life of cheerfulness and affection. The 
Lake of Tiberias is one of the most plentifully supplied 
with fish.* Yery successful fisheries were established, 
especially at Bethsaida and Capernaum, which had 
produced a certain competency. The families of the 
fishermen formed a pleasant and peaceful society, 
stretching by numerous bonds of relationship through 
all the lake region which we have described. Their 
leisurely life gave large liberty to their imagination. 
Ideas in relation to the kingdom of God found, in these 
little companies of simple people, more credence than 
anywhere else. JNTothing of what is called civilization, 
in the Greek and worldly sense, had penetrated among 
them. They had not our German or Celtic serious- 
ness ; but, although among them perhaps goodness was 
often superficial, and without depth, their manners 
were vpeaceful, and they had something of intelligence 
and refinement. They seem somewhat analogous to 

* Matt. , IV, 18; Luke, v, 44 seqq. ; John, i, 44; xxi, 1 seqq. ; J08. , B, J.j HI, x, 
7; James de Vitri, in the Gesta Dei per FroMcos, I, p. 1075. 



156 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the better populations of the Lebanon, but with the 
capability which these have not, of producing great 
men. Jesus there found his real family. He installed 
himself among them as one of themselves ; Capernaum 
became his own city,* and in the midst of the little 
circle which adored him, he forgot his skeptical bro- 
thers, ungrateful J^azareth and its mocking incredulity. 

One house especially, at Capernaum, offered him 
a pleasant asylum and devoted disciples. It was that 
of two brothers, both sons of a certain Jonas, who was 
probably dead at the period when Jesus came to reside 
upon the shore of the lake. These two brothers were 
Simon, surnamed Cephas or Peter, and Andrew. Born 
at Bethsaida,f they were established at Capernaum 
when Jesus commenced his public life. Peter was 
married, and had children; his mother-in-law lived 
with him.:j: Jesus loved this house, and made it his 
home.] Andrew appears to have been a disciple of 
John the Baptist, and Jesus had perhaps known him 
on the banks of the Jordan. § The two brothers con- 
tinued still, even at the time when it seems that they 
must have been most occupied with their master, to 
exercise the calling of fisher tn en. 1" Jesus, who was 
fond of playing upon words, said, occasionally, that 
he would make them fishers of men.** In fact, among 
all his disciples, he had no more faithful adherents. 

Another family, that of Zabdia or Zebedee, a fisher- 
man in comfortable circumstances, and owner of seve- 
ral boats,tt offered to Jesus an ardent welcome. Zeb- 

' * Matt., IX, 1; Mark, ii, 1-2. f John, i, 44. 

J Matt., 111,14; Mark, 1,30; Luke, iv, 38; I Cor., ix, 5; I Pet, v, 13. Clem 
Alex., Strom., Illy 6; VII, 11; Pseudo-Clem., Recogn., VII, 25; Eusebius, H. & 
III,. SO I Matt., VIII, 14; xvii, 24; Mark, i, 19-31; Luke, iv, 38 

^ John I, 40 seqq. ^ Matt. , iv, 18; Mark, i, 16; Luke, v, 3; John, xxi, 3 

** Matt., IV, 19; Mark, i, 17; Luke, v, 10. 

tt Mark, i, 20; Luke, v, 10; viu, 3; John, xix, 27. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 157 

edee had two sons, James, who was the elder, and a 
younger son, John, who at a later period was called 
to play so important a part in the history of early 
Christianity. Both were zealous disciples. Salome, 
Zebedee's wife, was also strongly attached to Jesus, and 
accompanied him until his death.* 

Women, indeed, welcomed him with ardor. He had 
with, them those reserved manners which render 
possible a very sweet union of ideas between the sexes. 
The separation of men and women, which has prevented 
among Semitic nations, all delicate development, was 
doubtless, then as in our day, much less rigorous in 
the country and in villages, than in the great towns. 
Three or four devoted Galilean women always accom- 
panied the young master, and disputed among them- 
selves the pleasure of listening to him and caring for 
him in turn.f They brought to the new sect an ele- 
ment of enthusiasm and of the marvelous, the impor- 
tance of which was already perceived. One of these, 
Mary of Magdala, who has rendered the name of her 
poor little village so famous in the world, appears to 
have been a very exalted person. According to the 
language of the time, she had been possessed of seven 
devils ;:j: that is to say, she had been affected by ner- 
vous diseases apparently inexplicable. Jesus, by his 
pure and gentle beauty, calmed this troubled organi- 
zation. The Magdalene was faithful to him even to 
Golgotha, and on the second day after his death, takes 
the most prominent part ; for she was the principal 
witness by which faith in the resurrection was estab- 
lished, as we shall see hereafter. Joanna, wife of 

♦ Matt, XXVII, 56; Mark, xv, 40; xvi, 1. 

J Matt., XXVII, 55-56; Mark, xv, 40-41; Luke, via, 2-3; xxin, 49. 
Mark, xvi, 9; Luke, viii, 2; Cf. TobU, in, 8; vi, 14. 



158 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Chuza, one of Antipater's stewards. Susannali, and 
others who remained unknown, followed him constant- 
ly, and ministered unto him.* Some were rich, and, 
by means of their fortune, placed the young prophet 
in a position to live without working at the trade 
which he had hitherto followed. f 

Many more followed him habitually, and recognized 
him as their master : a certain Philip of Betbsaida, 
l^athaniel, son of Tolmai or Ptolemy of Cana, perhaps 
one of the twelve,:]: Matthew, probably the same who 
was the Xenophon of nascent Christianity. lie had 
been a publican, and as such he doubtless handled the 
Tiolam with greater facility than the rest. Perhaps he 
thought even then of writing these Logia^ || which are 
the basis of all that we know of the teachings of Jesus. 
There are also named among the disciples Thomas, or 
Didymus,§ who doubted sometimes, but who appears 
to have been a man of heart and of generous at- 
tractions ;T" a Lebbeus, or Thaddeus ; a Simon the 
Zealot,** perhaps a disciple of Juda the Gaulo- 
nite, belonging to this party of the Kenaim.^ then ex- 
isting, and which was soon to play so great a part in 
the movements of the Jewish people ; finally, Judas, 
son of Simon, of the town of Kerioth, who was the ex- 
ception in the faithful band, and drew upon himself 
such appalling renown. He was the only one who was 
not a Galilean ; Kerioth was a town at the extreme south 
of the tribe of Judah,f f a day's journey beyond Hebron. 

* Luke. VIII, 3; xxiv, 10. f Luke, viii, 3. 

X John, I, 44 seqq. ; xxi, 2. I admit the identity of Nathaniel and the apostle 
who figures in the lists under the name of BarTholomew . 

II Papias, in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iii, 39. 

4 This second name is the Greek translation of the first. 

If John, XI, 16; xx, 24 seqq. 

** Matt., X, 4; Mark, in, 18;Luke, vi, 15; Acts, i, 13; Gospel of the Ebionim,in 
Epiph. , Adv. beer, , xxx, 13 ft Now Kuryetein or Kereitein. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 159 

We have seen that his family was, in general, little 
attracted to him.* Yet James and Jude, his cousins 
bj Mary Cleophas, were henceforth numbered among 
his disciples, and Mary Cleophas herself was one of the 
company which followed him to Calvary.f At this 
time, we do not see his mother near him. It is only 
after the death of Jesns that Mary acquires great con- 
sideration:!: and that the disciples seek to attach her to 
themselves.] Then also the members of the family of 
the founder, under the title of " brothers of the Lord," 
form an influential group, which was long at the head 
of the church of Jerusalem,§ and which, after the sack 
of that city, took refuge in Batanea.T The mere fact 
of having been related to him became a positive advan- 
tage just as, after the death of Mahomet, the wives 
and daughters of the prophet, who had had no impor- 
tance during his life, became great authorities. 

In this friendly company, Jesus evidently had pre- 
ferences, and, to some extent, a more select circle. 
The two sons of Zebedee, James and John, appear to 
have occupied the first rank in this. They were full 
of fire and passion. Jesus had aptly surnamed them 
" Sons of Thunder,'' because of their excessive zeal, 
which, if it had wielded the thunderbolt, would have 
made too frequent use of it.** John, especially, appears 
to have enjoyed a certain familiarity with Jesus. Per- 
haps this disciple, who afterwards was to write out his 
remembrances in a manner in which his personal inte- 
rest is too apparent, exaggerated the affection which 

» The circumstance reported in John, xix, 25-27, eeems to suppose that at no 
period of his public life did the brothers of Jesus attach themselves to him. 
+ Matt., XXVII, 56; Mark,xv, 40; John, xix, 25. 

1 Acts, 1, 14. Comp. Luke, i, 23; ii, 35, implying already great respect for Mary. 
I John, XIX, 25 seqq. 

^ See above, p. 68, note ^. ^f Julius Africanus in Eusebius.fl". jE., i, 7. 

* • Mark, iii, 17; ix, 37 seqq. ; x,36 seqq.; Luke, ix, 49 seqq.; 54 seqq. 



160 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

his master bore him.* It is still more significant that 
in the synoptic gospels, Simon Barjoua or Peter, James, 
son of Zebedee, and John, bis brother, form a sort of 
private circle, which Jesus calls to him at certain mo- 
men tswhenhe distrusts the faith or the intelligence of tbe 
rest.f It seems, moreover, that they were all three 
associated in their fisheries. :{: The afi'ection of Jesus 
for Peter was deep. Peter's character, straight-for- 
ward, sincere, and impetuous, pleased Jesus, who 
sometimes indulged in a smile at his downright ways. 
Peter, •little given to mysticism, communicated to the 
master his simple doubts, his dislikes, and his very 
human weaknesses,! with a frank honesty which reminds 
us of that of Joinville towards St. Louis. Jesus chided 
him in a friendly way, full of confidence and esteem. 
As to John, his youth,§ his exquisite tenderness of 
heart,^ and his vivid imagination,** must have had 
great charm. The personality of this extraordinary 
man, who gave such a decided deflection to nascent 
Christianity, was not developed until later. In old 
age, he wrote concerning his master, this strange 
gospeljf f which contains such precious teachings, but 
in which, to our conception, the character of Jesus is 
falsified in many points. John's nature was too 
powerful and too deep to be able to stoop to the im- 

* John, xni, 23; xviii, 15 seqq.; xix, 26-27; xx, 2, 4; xxi, 7, 20 seqq. 

t Matt., XVII, 1: xxvi, 37; Mark, v, 37; ix, 1; xiii, 3; xiv, 33; Luke, ix, 28. The 
idea that Jesus had communicated to these three disciples a gnosis or secret doc- 
trine was broached at a very early day. It is singular that John, in his Gospel, 
does not once mention his brother James. 

t Matt., IV, 18-22; Luke, v, 10; John, xxi, 2 seqq. 

I Matt., XIV, 28; xvi, 22; Mark, viii,32 seqq. 

§He apjpears to have lived until nearly the year 100. See his Gospel, xxi, 16-23, 
and the ancient authorities collected by Eusebius, H. E. , iii, 20, 23. 

^ See the Epistles which are attributed to him, and which are surely by the 
same author as the fourth Gospel. 

** We do not attempt to decide, however, whether thg Apocalypse is by him. 

fl The common tradition seems to me suflBciently justified upon this point. It 
Is evident, however, that the school of John retouched his Gospel after him, (see 
tbe whole of Chap. xxi). 



LIFE OF JESTJS. 161 

personal tone of the first evangelists. He was the 
biographer of Jesus as Plato was of Socrates. Habit- 
uated to revolve his souvenirs with the feverish rest- 
lessness of an exalted soul, he transformed his master 
wliile endeavoring to delineate him, and at times leads 
us to suspect (unless other hands have changed his 
work) that perfect good faith was not always his rule 
and his law in the composition of that singular produc- 
tion. 

"No hierarchy, properly so-called, existed in the rising 
Beet. All were to call each other "brethren," and 
Jesus absolutely proscribed titles of superiority, such 
as rahhij " master," " father," himself alone being mas- 
ter, and God alone being father. The greatest should 
be the servant of the others.* Yet Simon Barjona is 
distinguished among his equals by a quite peculiar 
degree of importance. Jesus lived with him and taught 
in his boat ;f his house was the center of the preaching 
of the gospels. He was generally considered the head 
of the flock, and it is to him that the collectors of taxes 
apply for the sums due from the community. J Simon 
was the first who had recognized Jesus as the Messiah. 1 
In a moment of unpopularity, Jesus asked his disci- 
ples: "Will ye also go away?" Simon answered: 
" Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of 
eternal life."§ Jesus repeatedly accorded to him a 
certain pre-eminence in his church,T and gave to him 
the Syriac surname of Cephas (Stone), meaning thereby 
that he made him the corner-stone of the edifice.** At 
one time, even, he seems to promise him "the keys of 

* Matt., XVIII, 4; xx, 25-26; xxiii, 8-12; Mark, ix, 34; x, 42-46. 

!Luke,v,3. tMatt.,xvii,23. 

Matt., xvt, 16-17. <) John, vi, 68-70. 

Matt., X, 2; Luke,xxn,32; John, xxi, 15 seqq.; Acts, i, ii, v, etc.; OaX.,i, 
18, 11, 7-8. ** Matt., XVI, 18; John, i, 42. 



162 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the kingdom of heaven," and accords to him the right 
to pronounce upon earth decisions which shall always 
be ratified in heaven.* 

Undoubtedly, this pre-eminence of Peter excited 
some jealousy. This jealousy was kindled especially 
in view of the future, in view of this kingdom of God, 
where all the disciples would be seated upon thrones, 
on the right and on the left of the master, to judge the 
twelve tribes of Israel.f They questioned who should 
then be nearest to the Son of man, acting in some sort 
as his prime minister and his assistant judge. The 
two sons of Zebedee aspired to this rank. Filled with 
this idea, they put forward their mother, Salome, who 
one day took Jesus aside, and asked of him the two 
places of honor for her sons. J Jesus averted the re- 
quest by his habitual principle, that whoso exalts him- 
self shall be ablised, and that the kingdom of heaven 
shall belong to the little ones. This caused some out- 
cry in the. community ; there was great discontent 
against James and John.|| The same rivalry seems to 
appear in the gospel of John, in w^hicli we behold the 
writer incessantly declaring that he was the *' beloved 
disciple '' to whom the master at death confided his 
mother, and systematically seeking to place himself 
near Simon Peter, at times to put himself before him, 
in important junctures where the older evangelists 
had omitted him.§ 

Among the persons mentioned above, all of whom 
anything is known had commenced as fishermen. At 

* Matt., XVI, 19. Elsewhere, it is true (Matt., XVIII, 18), the same power is 
accorded to all the apostles. 
+ Matt., xviii, 1 seqq.; Mark, ix, 33; Luke, ix, 46; xxii, 30. 
± Matt. , XX, 20 seqq. ; Mark, x, 35 seqq. || Mark, x, 41. 

^ John, iviu, 15 seqq.j xix, 26-27; xx, 2 seqq. ; xxi, 7, 21. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 163 

all events none of them belonged to an elevated social 
class. Matthew or Levi, son of Alphens,* had been a 
publican. But those to whom that name was given 
in Judea were not the former generals, men of an el- 
evated rank (always Roman knights) who were called 
puUicani^ at Eome. They were the agents of those 
farmer-generals, employees of a low grade, simple 
land-waiters. The great road from Acre to Damascus, 
one of the most ancient roads in the world, which 
crossed Galilee passing by the lake,:f greatly multiplied 
there this species of employees. Capernaum, which 
was perhaps upon the route, possessed a numerous body 
of them. II That profession has never been popular; but 
among the Jews it passed for an absolute crime. The 
tax, new to them, was the sign of their vassalage ; one 
school, that of Juda the Gaulonite, held that to pay 
it was an act of paganism. Thus the tax-collectors 
were abhorred by the zealots of the Law. Tliey were 
named only in company with assassins, high- way rob- 
bers, and men of infamous life.g Jews who accepted 
such functions were excommunicated and became in- 
capacitated from making a will ; their money-chests 



* Matt, IX, 9; X, 3; Mark, n.l4; iii,18; Luke, v, 27; vi, 15; Ads., i, 13. Gos- 
pel of the Ebionim, in Epiph. , Ado. hcer. , xxx, 13. We must suppose, strange as 
itmay seem, that these two names were borne by the same personage. The story, 
Matt., IX, 9, formed after the ordinary model of the legends of apostolic voca- 
tions, is, it is true, somewhat vague, and certainly was not written by the apostle 
in question. But we must remember that, in the present gospel of Matthew, the 
only portion which is by the apostle, is the Discourses of Jesus. See Papias, in 
Eusebius, Hint, eccl., iii, 39. 

•j- Cicero, Depromnc. consular, 5; Pro Plancio, 9; Tac, Ann., iv, 6. Pliny, Hist. 
not., XII, ;32; Appian, Bell. Civ., ii, 13. 

% It remained celebrated down to the time ol the crusades, under the name of 
Via maris. Cf. Isaiah, ix,.l ; Matt., iv, 13--15; Tobit, i, 1. I think that the road 
cut in the r ck, near Ain-et-Tin, was part of it, and that the route turned thence 
towards the Bridge of Jacfib's Daughters, just as it now does. A portion of the road 
from Ain-et Tin to this bridge is of ancient construction. 

]| Matt., IX, 9 seqq. 

^ Matt, V, 46-47; ix, 10, 11; xi, 19; xviii, 17; xxi, 31-32, Mark, ii, 15-16, Luke, 
V, 30; VII, 34; xv, 1; xviii, 11; xix, 7; Lucien, Necyoman, ii; Die Chrysost, 
orat IV, p 85; orat. xiv, p. 269 (edit. Emperius) ; Mischna, Neda im, iii, 4. 



164 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

were accursed and the casuists proliibited the faithful 
from changing money with them*. These poor men, 
outcasts from society, looked to each other. Jesus ac- 
cepted a dinner which Levi offered him, and at which 
there were, according to the language of the times, 
"many publicans and sinners." This caused great 
scandal.f In these ill- famed houses, one ran the risk of 
meeting disreputable society. We shall often see him 
thus, careless of shocking the prejudices of right-think- 
ing people, seeking to elevate the classes humiliated 
by the orthodox, and exposing himself in this manner 
to the most vehement reproaches of devotees. 

Jesus owed these numerous conquests to the infinite 
charm of his person and his speech. A penetrating 
remark, a look falling upon a simple conscience, 
which needed only to be awakened, made for him an 
ardent disciple. Sometimes Jesus made use of an in- 
nocent artifice, which Joan of Arc also employed. He 
would aver that he knew something intimately con- 
cerning him whom he wished to win, or he would re- 
call to him some circumstance dear to his heart. It is 
thus that he touched Kathanlel,:]: Peter, || and the Sam- 
aritan woman. § Dissembling the true cause of his 
power, I mean his superiority over those around him, 
he suffered them to believe, in order to satisfy the 
ideas of the times, ideas which were moreover entirely 
his own, that a revelation from on high discovered to 
him their secrets and opened their hearts. All thought 
that he lived in a sphere superior to that of humanity, 

* Mischna, Bdba Kama, x, 7; Talm. of Jerus., Demai, n, 3; Talm. ofBab.,ScM- 
hedrin, 25 b. t IJuke, v, 29 seqq. 

t John, I, 48 seqq. || John, i. 42. 

5 John, IV, 17 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 165 

It was said that lie conversed upon the mountains with 
Moses and Elias;* it was believed that, in his mo- 
nients of solitude angels came to pay their homage to 
him, and established a supernatural intercourse be- 
tween him and heaven.f 

* Matt. , XVII, 3; Mark, ix, 3; Luke, ix, 30-31 
t Matt, IV, 11; Mark, 1,13. 



166 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE SERlIOIfS BY THE SSA. 

Such was the group which, upon the banks of the 
Lake of Tiberias, pressed around Jesus. The aristocracy 
was represented by a tax-gatherer and by the wife of 
a steward. The rest consisted of fishermen and sim- 
ple people. Their ignorance was extreme ; their un- 
derstanding was weak ; they believed m specters and 
in spirits.* No element of Hellenic culture had pen- 
etrated this first coenaculum ; their Jewish instruction 
was also very incomplete ; but heart and good-will over- 
flowed among them. The beautiful climate of Galilee 
made the existence of these honest fishermen a perpet- 
ual enchantment. They prefigured truly the kingdom 
of God, simple, good, happy, rocked gently upon their 
delightful little sea, or sleeping at night upon its 
shores. We cannot conceive the intoxication of a life 
which thus glides away in the presence of the heavens, 
the glow, mild yet strong, which this perpetual con- 
tact with nature gives, the dreams of these niglits 
passed amid the brilliancy of the stars, beneath the 
azure dome of the illimitable depths. It was during 
such a night that Jacob, his head pillowed upon a 
stone, saw in the stars the promise of an innumerable 

• Matt., XIV, 26; Mark, vi, 49; Luke, xxiv, 39; John, vi, 19. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 167 

posterity, and tbe mysterious ladder by wliicli the Elo- 
him came and went from heaven to earth. In the 
time of Jesus, the heavens were not yet closed, nor 
had the earth grown cold. The cloud still opened 
over the Son of man ; angels ascended and descended 
upon his head,* visions of the kingdom of God were 
everywhere; for man carried them in his heart. The 
clear, mild eye of these simple souls contemplated the 
universe in its ideal source ; perhaps the world dis- 
closed its secret to the divinely lucid conscience of 
these fortunate children, whose purity of heart made 
them worthy one day to see God. 

Jesus lived with his disciples almost always in the 
open air. Often he went Into a boat and taught his 
hearers crowded upon the shore .f Sometimes, he sat 
down upon the hills which border the lake, where the 
air is so pure and the horizon so luminous. The faith- 
ful flock went also, cheerful wayfarers, receiving the 
inspirations of the master in their first flower. An in- 
nocent doubt sometimes arose, a gently skeptical ques- 
tion; Jesus, with a smile or a look, silenced the objec- 
tion. At every step, in the passing cloud, the grow- 
ing grain, the yellowing ear, they saw the sign of the 
kingdom at hand ; they believed that they were soon 
to see God, and be the masters of the world ; their 
tears turned into joy, it was the advent upon earth of 
the universal consolation. 

" Blessed, said the master, are the poor in spirit ; for 
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

" Blessed are they that mourn ; for they shall be 
comforted 

• John, 1, 61. t Matt. , xiii, 1-2; Mark, in, 9; iv, 1; Luke, v, 3. 



168 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

" Blessed are the meek ; for they shall inherit the 
earth. 

*^ Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after 
righteousness ; for they shall be filled. 

" Blessed are the merciful ; for they shall obta-in 
mercy. 

" Blessed are the pure in heart ; for they shall see 
God. 

" Blessed are the peace-makers ; for they shall be 
called the children of God. 

" Blessed are they which are persecuted for right- 
eousness' sake ; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."* 

His preaching was sweet and gentle, full of nature 
and of the perfume of the fields. He loved flowers, 
and he took from them his most charming lessons. The 
birds of heaven, the sea, the mountains, the plays of 
children, were used by turns in his teachings. His 
style had nothing of the Greek period, but approached 
much nearer to that of the Hebrew parabolists, and 
especially to the sayings of the Jewish doctors, his co- 
temporaries, such as we find them in the Pirlce Ahoth. 
His development of his theme was slight, and formed 
species of surats like those of the Koran, which, strung 
together, afterwards composed these long discourses 
which were written by Matthew.f No transition con- 
nected these diverse pieces ; yet ordinarily the same 
inspiration penetrated them and gave them unity. It 
was especially in parable that the master excelled. 
Nothing in Judaism had given him the model of this 
delightful style.:]: He himself created it. It is true 

* Matt., V, 3-10; Luke, vi, 20-26. 

t These are what are called theAo^ia xu^taxa.Papias, in Eusebius, fl^..^., Ill, 39. 

X The apologue, such as we find it in Judges, ix, 8 seqq. ; II Sam., in, 1 seqq., 
has only a resemblance in form to the evangelical parable. The profound orig- 
inality of this latter is in the sentiment which pervades it . 



LIFE OF JESUS. 169 

that we find in the Buddhist books parables of exactly 
the same tone and the same composition ae the Gospel 
parables. But it is difficult to a,dmit that a Buddhist 
influence could have been felt in these. The spirit of 
meekness and the depth of feeling which equally an- 
imated Buddhism and nascent Christianity, suffice per- 
haps to explain these analogies. 

A total indifference to external modes of life and to 
the vain appurtenances of "comfort," which in our se- 
vere climate are a necessity, was the consequence of 
the simple and pleasant life which was led in Galilee. 
Cold climates, by obliging man to struggle perpetually 
against external nature, cause too much value to be 
attached to the pursuit of comfort and luxury. On 
the contrary, the countries which awakens fewest wants 
are the lands of idealism and poesy. The accessories 
of life are there insignificant compared with the plea- 
sure of living. The embellishment of the house is su- 
perfluous ; men remain in-doors as little as possible. 
The hearty and regular alimentation of less generous 
climates would be considered burdensome and disa- 
greeable. And as for luxury of dress, how can they 
vie with what God has given to the earth and to the 
birds of the sky? Labor, in such climates appears 
superfluous ; what it yields is not worth that which it 
costs. The beasts of the fields are clad better than 
the richest man, and they do nothing. This contempt, 
which, when it has not sloth for its cause, contributes 
greatly to the elevation of the soul, inspired in Jesus 
charming apologues : " Lay not up for yourselves 
treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth cor- 
rupt, and where thieves break through and steal, but 

* See especially the Lobus de la bonne lot, ch. iii and ly. 
8 



170 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

lay np for yourselves treasures in heaven, where nei- 
ther moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves 
do not bi-eak through nor steal: for where your treas- 
ure is, tliere will your heart be also.* Ko man can 
serve two masters : for either he Avill hate the one, 
and love the the other ; or else he will hold to the one, 
and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mam- 
mon. f Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for 
your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink ; nor 
yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life 
more than meat, and the body than raiment ? Be- 
hold the fowls of the air : for they sow not, neither do 
they reap, nor gather into barns ; yet your heavenly 
Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than 
they ? Which of you by taking thought can add one 
cubit unto his stature ? And why take ye thought 
for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field how they 
grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin ; And yet I 
say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not ar- 
rayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe 
the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow 
is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe 
you, O ye of little faith ? Therefore take no thought, 
saying, what shall we eat? or what shall we drink ? or, 
wherewithal shall we be clothed ? (For after all these 
things do the Gentiles seek,) for your heavenly Father 
knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 
But seek ye first righteousness and the kingdom of 
God,:]: and all these things shall be added unto you : 
Take therefore no thouglit for the morrow; for the 

* Compare Talm . of Bab. , Baba Baihra , 11 , a. 

t The god of riches and of hidden treasures, a sort of Plutus in the mythology 
of Phoenicia and Syria. 
X I adopt here the reading of Lachmann and Tischendorf. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 171 

morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. 
Sufficient unto the daj is the evil thereof."* 

This sentiment, essentially Galilean, had a decisive 
influence upon the destiny of the nascent sect. The 
first rule of the happy flock, relying upon their heav- 
enly Father to satisfy their wants, was to' regard the 
cares of life, as evils which stifle in man the germ of 
all good.:j: Every day they asked God for the mor- 
row's bread. J Wherefore lay up treasure ? The king- 
dom of God is at hand. " Sell that ye have and give 
alms," said the master. " Provide for yourselves bags 
which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens thatfaileth 
not."! What is more senseless than heaping stores for 
heirs whom yon shall never see ?§ As an example of 
human folly, Jesus was fond of citing the case of a 
man who, after having enlarged his barns and laid up 
goods for many years, died before he had enjoyed 
them.Tf Brigandage, which was very common in Gal- 
ilee,** gave much force to this view of things. The 
poor, who did not suffer by it, came to regard them- 
selves as the favored of God ; while the rich, having 
no sure possession, were the truly disinherited. In 
our society, established upon a very rigorous idea of 
property, the position of the poor man is horrible ; he 
has literally no place under the sun. There are no 
flowers, no grass, no shade, but for him who possesses 
the earth. In the East these are the gifts of God, 
which belong to no man. The proprietor has but a 
slender privilege ; nature is the patrimony of all. 

* Matt., VI, 19-21, 24-34. Luke, xn, 22-31, 33-34; xvi, 13. Compare the pre- 
cepts, Xuke, X, 7-8, full of the same simple feeling, andTalm. of Bab., Sata,4:Sb. 
t Matt., xni, 22; Mark, iv, 19; Luke, viii, 14. 

X Matt., VI, 11 ; Luke, xi, 3. This is the sense of the word i'n'io6(flog. 
I Luke, XII, 33-34. (n Luke, xii, 20. 11" Luke, xu, 16 seqq. 

** Jos. , Ant. , XVU, X, 4 aeqq. ; Vita, 11, etc. 



172 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

. / . 

Dawning Christianity, moreover, in this did but 

follow the track of the Esssenes or Therapeutes, and 
the Jewish sects founded upon life in communi- 
ties. A communistic element entered into all of these 
sects, despised equally by tlie Pharisees and the Sad- 
"^ ducees. Messianism, entirely political with the orthodox 
^ Jews, became with them entirely social. By a temper- 
ate contemplative existence, leaving individual liberty 
in full play, these little churches thought to inaugur- 
ate upon earth the kingdom of heaven. Utopias of 
blissful life, founded upon the fraternity of man and 
the pure worship of the true God, preoccupied lofty 
souls, and produced on all sides essays bold and sin- 
cere, but of small results. 

Jesus whose relations with the Essenes it is very 
difficult to determine with precision (resemblance, in 
history, not always implying intercommunication), 
was in this respect certainly their brother. Commu- 
nity of goods was for some time the rule in the new 
society.* Avarice was the capital sin ;f now it must be 
understood that the sin of " avarice," against which 
Christian rule was so severe, was then simple attachment 
property. The first condition necessary for a disciple 
of Jesus, was to realize his fortune and to give the 
proceeds to the poor. Those who recoiled before this 
extremity did not enter the community.;]: Jesus re- 
peated often that he who found the kingdom of God 
must purchase it at the price of all his goods, and 
that in so doing he yet made an advantageous bargain, 
" The man who hath found a treasure in a field," said 
he, "without losing an instant goeth and selleth that 

* Acts, IV, 32, 34-37; v, 1 seqq. f Matt. , xiri, 22; Luke, xir, 16 seqq 

X Matt., XIX ; 21; Mark, x, 21 seqq. ; 29-30; Luke, xviii, 22-23, 28. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 173 

he hath and bujeth that field. The merchantman 
who hath found one pearl of great price selleth all, and 
buyeth it."* Alas! the inconveniences of this regime 
soon became manifest. A treasurer was necessary, 
Judas of Kerioth was chosen for that office. Kight- 
fullj or wrongfully, he was accused of stealing the com- 
mon fund ;f so much is certain, that he made a bad 
end. 

Sometimes the master, more versed in the things of 
heaven than in those of earth, taught a political econ- 
omy still more singular. In a strange parable, a stew- 
ard is praised for having made friends among the poor 
at the expense of his master, that the poor in their 
turn might receive him in the kingdom of heaven. The 
poor, indeed, as they are to be the dispensers of this 
kingdom, will receive only those who have given to 
them. A prudent man, looking to the future, should 
therefore seek to win them. " The Pharisees, who 
were covetous," says the Evangelist, "heard these 
things and they derided him. "J Heard they also this 
terrible parable ? " There was a certain rich man, 
which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared 
Buraptiiously every day: And there was a certain beg- 
gar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of 
sores. And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which 
fell from the rich man's table : moreover, the dogs 
came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that 
the beggar died, and was carried away by the angels 
into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died, and 
was buried ;] And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being 
in torment, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus 

* Matt. , xiii, 44-46. t John, xii, 6. 

Luke; xvi, 1-14. 1 See the Greek text 



174 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

in his bosom. And lie cried, and said, Father Abra- 
ham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he 
may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my 
tongue ; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abra- 
ham said. Son, remember that thou in thy life-time re- 
ceivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil 
things: but now he is comforted and thou art tor- 
mented.*'* What more just? Afterwards this was 
called the parable of the " wicked rich man." But it is 
purely and simply the parable of the " rich man." He 
is in hell because he is rich, because he does not give 
his goods to the poor, because he dines well, while 
others at his gate fare poorly. Finally at a time when, 
with less exaggeration, Jesus presents the obligation 
of selling one's goods and giving them to the poor, 
only as a condition of perfection, he still makes this 
terrible declaration : *' It is easier for a camel to go 
through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to 
enter into the kingdom of God."f 

A feeling of wond'erful depth controled Jesus in all 
this, as well as the band of joyous children who ac- 
companied him, and made him for all eternity the true 
creator of the soul's peace, the great comforter of life. 
In releasing man from what he calls " the cares of this 
world,'' Jesus went to excess and attacked the essen- 
tial conditions of human society ; but he founded this 
lofty spirituality which during centuries has filled souls 
with joy in this vale of tears. He saw with perfect 

* Luke XVI, 19-25. Luke, I know, has a very decided communistic tendency 
(compare VI, 20-21, 25-26); and I think he has exaggerated this feature of the 
teaching of Jesus. But the characteristics of the Aiyia. of Matthew are sig- 

t Matt. XIX, 24; Mark, x, 25; Luke, xviii, 25. This proverbial saying is found 
in the Talmud (Bab., Berakoth, 55 ft, Bahametsia, 38 b), and in the Koran (Sur., 
VII, H8). Origen and the Greek interpreters, ignorant oJ the Semitic proverb, 
thought that it related to a cable (xa/x<Xoj). 



LIFE OF JESUS. 175 

clearness that the heedlessness of man, his want of 
philosophy and morality, come generally from the 
distractions into wliich he allows himself to be drawn, 
from the cares which beset him and which civilization 
multiplies beyond measure.* The Gospel has thus 
been the supreme remedy for the sorrows of common 
life, a perpetual sursum corda^ a mighty distraction 
from the wretched cares of earth, a sweet appeal like 
that of Jesus to the ear of Martha : '* Martha, Martha, 
thou art careful and troubled about many things; but 
one thing is needful." Thanks to Jesus, the most spiritless 
existence, that most absorbed in sad or humiliating du- 
ties, has had its glimpse of heaven. In our bustling 
civilization, the memory of the free life of Galilee has 
been like the perfume of another world, like a " dew 
of IIermon,"f which has prevented sterility and vul- 
garity from completely usurping the field of God. 

• Hatt., XIII, 22. t Fs. cxxxiii, 3. 



176 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER XL 

THB KINGDOM OF GOD CONCEIVED AS THE ADVEKT 
OP THE POOB. 

These maxims, good for a country in which the con- 
ditions of life are free sunshine and the open air. this 
delicate communism of a flock of God's children, liv- 
ing in confidence upon the bosom of their father, were 
very well for a simple sect, persuaded continuall}^ that 
its Utopia was at the point of realization. But it is 
evident that they could not rally the mass of society. 
Jesus, indeed, soon comprehended that the official 
world of his time would give no countenance to his 
kingdom. He resolved upon his course with extreme 
boldness. Leaving all this world to its hardness 
of heart and its narrow prejudices, he turned to- 
wards the simple. A vast substitution of race is to 
take place. The kingdom of God is : first, for children 
and for those who are like them ; second, for the out- 
casts of this world, victims of social arrogance, which 
repulses the good but humble man ; third, for heretics 
and scliismatics, publicans, Samaritans and pagans of 
Tyre and Sidon. An energetic parable illustrated this 
appeal to the people and justified it :* A king 
has made a wedding feast and sends forth his servants 

* Matt.. XXII, 2 seqq.; Luke, xrv, 16 geqq. Compare Matt., tiii, 11-12; xxi. 33 
eeqq 



LIFE OF JESUS. 177 

to call them that were bidden. All excuse them- 
selves ; some maltreat the servants. The king then 
takes a decided stand. Tlie proper persons would not 
come at bis invitation ; very well ! it shall be the peo- 
ple found in the streets and lanes, the poor, the blind 
and the halt, anybody ; the house must be filled, and 
I swear to you, said the king, that none of those which 
were bidden shall taste of my supper." 

Pure Ebionism, that is to say the doctrine that the 
poor {ehionim) only shall be saved, that the reign of 
the poor is at hand, was therefore the doctrine of 
Jesus. "Woe unto you that are rich! said he, for ye 
have received your consolation. Woe unto you that 
are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that 
laugh ! for ye shall mourn and weep."* " When thou 
makest a dinner or a supper, said he again, call not 
thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor 
thy neigbors; lest they also bid thee again, and re- 
compense be made thee. But when thou makest a 
feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind ; 
and thou shalt be blessed ; for they cannot recompense 
thee : for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrec- 
tion of the just."f It is perhaps in an analogous 
sense that he often repeated : " Be ye good bankers,"^ 
that is to say : Make good investments for the kingdom 
of God, by giving your goods to the poor, according to 
the ancient proverb : '' He that liath pity upon the 
poor, lendeth to the Lord."|| 

Tins was not, moreover, a new thing. The most ex 
alted democratic movement of which humanity has 

* Luke VI, 24-25. f Luke, xiv, 12-14. 

t A word preserved by a very ancient and wide-spread tradition. Clement of 
Alex. , Strom. , I, 28. It is found in Origen, in St. Jerome, and in a great number 
Of the Fathers of the Church. || Prov . , xix , 17 . 



178 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

preserved the remembrance (the only one also which 
has been successful, for it alone has confined itself to 
the realm of pure idea), had long been agitating the 
Jewish race. The thought that God is the avenger of 
the poor and feeble against the rich and powerful, is 
found on every page of the Old Testament. The his- 
tory of Israel is of all histories that in which the pop- 
ular spirit has most constantly ruled. The prophets, 
true tribunes of the people, and in one sense the bold- 
est of tribunes, had thundered without ceasing against 
the great and established a strict relation, on the one 
hand, between the words "rich, impious, violent and 
wicked," and, on the other, between the words, " poor, 
gentle, humble and pious."* Under the Seleucidse, 
nearly all the aristocrats having apostatized and 
passed over to Hellenism, these associations of ideas 
grew all the stronger. The Book of Enoch contains 
maledictions still more forcible than those of the Gos- 
pel against the world, the rich and the powerful, f 
Luxury it presents as a crime. The ' Son of man ' in 
this strange Apocalypse, dethrones kings, snatches 
them away from their voluptuous life and hurls them 
headlong into hell.:|: The initiation of Judea into mun- 
dane life, the recent introduction of an element of 
luxury and ease altogether worldly, provoked a furious 
reaction in favor of patriarchal simplicity. ** Woe to 
you who despise the dwelling and tlie inheritance of 
your father 1 Woe to you who build you palaces with 
the sweat of others I Each one of the stones, each 



* See, in particular, Amos, ii, 6; Is., lxiii, 9; Ps., xxv, 9; xxxvii, 11; lxix, 33; 
and the Hebrew dictionaries in general at the words: 

.p-iy ,n''^b)n ,-i^K'y ,n^Dn a:v /""jy /h /ivn« 

t Ch. Lxii, LXIII, xcvii, 0, CIV. X Enoch, ch. xlvi,4-8. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 179 

one of the bricks thereof is a sin."* The name of 
" poor " (ehion) had become synonymous with '' saint," 
and "friend of God." It was the name which the 
Galilean disciples of Jesus loved to give themselves; 
it was long the name of the Judaizing Christians of 
the Batanea and .of Haouran (Nazarenes, Hebrews) 
who remained faithful to the language as well as to 
the primitive teachings of Jesus, and who boasted of 
possessing among them the descendants of his family.! 
At the close of the second century these good sectaries, 
who had dwelt without the great current which 
bore away the other churches, are classed as heretics 
(Ebionites), and in order to explain their name a pre- 
tended heresiarch Ebio7i\ was invented. 

We readily discover, indeed, that this exaggerated 
taste for poverty could not be very durable. It was 
one of those Utopian elements which always existed 
in great foundations, and which time tempers to just 
proportions. Transported into the broad medium of 
human society, Christianity was one day very readliy 
to consent to take the rich to its bosom, just as Budd- 
hism, exclusively monastic in its origin, when conver- 
sions began to multiply, soon came to admit lay mem- 
bers. But everything preserves the mark of its origins. 
Although quickly laid aside and forgotten, Ebionism 
left in all the whole history of Christian institutions a 

* Enoch, xcix, 13, 14. 

t Julius Africanus m Eusebius, H. E.,1,T; Eus. , De Situ et nom. loc. hebr. , at the 
word vw/Sa. Origen, ContraCdsum, 11,1; Deprincipiis, TV , 6l;'E-piph, Adv. hcer., 
XXIX, 7,9; XXX, 2, 18. 

X See especially Origen, Contra Cdsum, 11, 1; De principiis, IV, 22. Compare 
Epiph., -4(Zy. /icer, , XXX, 17. Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, and the apostolic Con- 
stitutions are ignorant of the existence of such a personage. The author of the 
Philosophumena seems to hesitate (VII, 34 and 35; X, 22 and '2S. It is through 
Tertullian and especially through Epiphanius that the fable of an Ebion was 
bruited abroad. Otherwise all the Fathers agree upon the etymology 



180 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

leaven wHch was not lost. The collection of the Logia 
or discourses of Jesus was made in the Ebionite medi- 
um of the Batanea.* " Poverty " remained an ideal 
which the true lineage of Jesus never abandoned. To 
possess nothing was the true evangelical condition ; 
mendicity became a virtue, a sacred state. The great 
Umbrian movement of the thirteenth century, which 
is, among all attempts at religious foundation, that 
which most resembles the Galilean movement, was 
made entirely in the name of poverty. Francis d'As- 
sisi, that man of all the world who, by his exquisite 
goodness and his sympathy, delicate, refined, and ten- 
der, with universal life, has most resembled Jesus, was 
poor. The mendicant orders, the innumerable com- 
munist sects of the middle ages (Pauvres de Lyon, 
Begards, Bons-Hommes, Fratricelli, Humiliati, Gospel 
Poor, etc.), grouped under the banner of the " Eternal 
Gospel," professed to be, and were in fact, the true 
disciples of Jesus. But here again the most impossible 
dreams of the new religion were fruitful. The pious 
mendicity, of which our industrial and administrative 
societies are so impatient, was, in its day and beneath 
the sky which comported with it, fall of charm. It 
offered to a multitude of contemplative and gentle 
souls the only condition which befitted them. To have 
made poverty an object of love and desire, to have lifted 
the beggar upon the altar and sanctified the dress of 
the man of the people, is a master-stroke at which polit- 
ical economy may not be deeply touched, but before 
which the true moralist cannot remain indifferent. 
Humanity, to bear its burden, has need to believe that 
it is not fully paid by its wages. Tlie greatest service 

* Epiph., Adv. hear., xii, xxix and xxx, especially, x^x, 9 



LIFE OF JESUS. 181 

which can be rendered it is to repeat to it often that it 
does not live by bread alone. 

Like all great men, Jesus had sympathy with the 
people, and felt himself at home with them. The 
Gospel was made, in his idea, for the poor ; it is to 
them that he brings the good news of salvation.* All 
the outcasts of orthodox Judaism were his favorites. 
Love of the people, pity for their weakness, the senti- 
ment of the democratic chief, who feels living in him 
the spirit of the multitude, and lecognizes himself as 
its natural interpreter, constantly bursts forth in his 
acts and his discourses.! 

The chosen band presented, indeed, a very motley 
character, at which the orthodox must have been great- 
ly astonished. It numbered in its bosom people with 
whom a Jew of self-respect would not associate.:]: Per- 
haps Jesus found in this unconventional society more 
distinction and more heart than in a pedantic, formal 
respectability, proud of its seeming morality. The 
Pharisees, exaggerating the Mosaic rules, came to 
think themselves polluted by contact with people less 
rigid than they ; they reached in their meals almost 
the puerile distinctions of caste in India. Despising 
these miserable aberrations of religious sentiment, Jesus 
loved to dine withthose who were its victims ;|| they saw 
beside him persons who were said to lead an evil life, 
perhaps, it is true, for this cause only, that they did 
not share in the follies of the pretended devotees. The 
Pharisees and doctors cried out at the scandal. '' Be- 
hold," said they, " with what manner of men he eats!" 
Jesus made, then, keen responses, which exasperated 

• Matt., XI, 5; Luke, vi, 20-n. 

I Matt., IX, 36; Mark, vi, 34. J Matt., ix, 10 aeqq.; Luke, xv, entire 

Matt., IX, 11; Mark, a, 16; Luke, v, 30. 



182 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

tlie hypocrites : "The whole need not a physician ;"* 
or again : '' The shepherd who hath lost one sheep out 
of an hundred, leaves the ninety and nine to go after 
that which is lost, and, when he hath found it, he 
bringeth it home upon his shoulders rejoicing ;"f or 
again : " The son of man is come to save that which 
was lost ;":j: or again : '' I am not come to call the 
righteous, but sinners ;"|| finally, that delightful para- 
ble of the prodigal son, in which he who has fallen is 
presented as having a sort of privilege of love over the 
one who has always been righteous. "Women, weak or 
guilty, surprised by so much charm, and tasting for the 
first time the alluring contact of virtue, freely ap- 
proached him. They were astonished that he did not 
repulse them. " Oh," said the puritans, " this man is 
no prophet; for if he were, he would perceive that the 
woman who is touching him is a sinner." Jesus an- 
swered by the parable of a creditor who forgave his 
debtors unequal debts, and he feared not to prefer the 
lot of him to whom the largest debt was forgiven. § 
He measured souls only by their love. Women, with 
hearts full of tears and disposed by their faults to feel- 
ings of humility, were nearer his kingdom than com- 
mon-place natures, in whom it is often little merit not 
to have fallen. It is easy to conceive, on the other 
hand, that these tender souls, finding in their conver- 
sion to the sect, a ready means of re-instatement, be- 
came passionately attached to him. 

* Matt. , IX, 12. t Luke, xv, 4 seqq. 

1- Matt., xvin, 11; Luke, xix, 10. || Matt. , ix, 13. 

^ Luke, VII, 36 seqq. Luke, who loves to dwell upon all that relates to the 
pardon of sinners (compare x, 30 seqq.; xv, entire; xvii,l6 feeqq.;xix 2 seqq.; 
XXIII, 39-43), has combined this story with the incidents of another, that of the 
anointment of the feet, which took place at Bethany some days before thf death 
of Jesus. But the pardon of the woman taken in adultery was undoubtedly one 
of the essential features of the anecdotal life of Jesus. Cf. John,vxi, i, 3 seqq.; 
Papias, in Ku.«cbius, HUt er.d., Ill, 39. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 183 

Far from seeking to check the murmurs which his 
contempt for the social susceptibilities of the times 
aroused, he seemed to take pleasure in exciting them. 
Never did anyone avow more haughtily that disdain 
of the " world," which is the condition of great achieve- 
ments and of great originality. He pardoned the rich 
man only when, by reason of some prejudice, the rich 
man was hated by society.* He loftily preferred people 
of equivocal life and of little consideration to the or- 
thodox magnates. " The publicans and the harlots," 
said he to them, '' go into the kingdom of God before 
you. John came ; the publicans and the harlots be- 
lieved him ; and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not 
afterward, that ye might believe him."f We can un- 
derstand how cutting must have been the reproach of 
not having followed the example of women of pleasure, 
to people making a profession of gravity and rigid 
morality. 

He had no external affectation nor show of austerity. 
He did not shun pleasure ; he went gladly to marriage 
festivals. One of his miracles was performed to en- 
liven a village wedding. Tiicse marriage parties in 
the East are held in the evening. Each one carries a 
lamp ; the lights dancing to and fro produce a very 
pleasing effect. Jesus loved this gay and animated 
spectacle, and drew from it some of his parables. J 
When such conduct was compared to that of John the 
Baptist, it seemed scandalous. || One day, when the 
disciples of John and the Pharisees were observing a 
fast : " Why," he was asked, " do the disciples of John 
and the Pharisees fast and pray, but thine eat. and 

• Luke, XIX, 2 seqq. + Matt. , xxi, 31-^3. 

X Mark, ii, 18; Luke, v, 33. | Matt., xxv, 1 seqq. 



184 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

drink?" "Suffer them," said Jesus; "can ye make 
the groomsmen fast, while the bridegroom is with 
them ? The days will come when the bridegroom shall 
be taken away from them ; then shall they fast."* His 
gentle gaiety was constantly expressing itself by lively 
reflections and kindly pleasantries. " Whereunto," 
said he, " shall I liken this generation ? and to what are 
they like ? They are like unto children sitting in the 
market-place, and calling one to another, and saying: 

We have piped unto you, 
And ye have not danced ; 
We have mourned unto you, 
And ye have not wept.t 

John came, neither eating nor drinking ; and ye say : 
He is a mad man. The son of man is come eating and 
drinking; and ye say: Behold a gluttonous man and 
a wine bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But 
wisdom is justified of all her works. ":j: 

Thus he traversed Galilee in the midst of a perpet- 
ual holiday. He rode upon a mule, an animal in the 
East so sure and good, whose large black eye, shaded 
with long lashes, is full of gentleness. His disciples 
sometimes displayed a rustic pomp about him at the 
expense of their garments, which took the place of 
carpets. They put these upon the mule which bore 
him, or spread them upon the ground in his path.|| 
When he alighted at a house, it was a rejoicing and a 
benediction. He stopped in the market-towns and at 

* Matt. , IX, 14 seqq. ; Mark, ii, 18 seqq. ; Luke, v, 33 seqq. 

+ In allusion to some children's play. 

jMatt.,xi,16 seqq.; Luke, vii, 34 seqq. A proverb which means: "The 
opinion of men is blind. The wisdom of the works of God is proclaimed only 
by his works themselves." I read sWwv, with the manuscript B of the Vati- 
can, and not rs'xvwv. 



LIFE OP JESUS. 185 

the great farmhouses, where he received an assiduous 
hospitality. In the East,* the house at which a stran- 
ger stops, becomes at once a public place. The whole 
village assembles there ; the children invade it ; the 
servants drive them away ; they return continually. 
Jesus could not permit any to treat these artless audi- 
tors harshly ; he called them to him and embraced 
them.f Mothers, encouraged by such a reception, 
brought him their nurselings that he might touch them4 
Women came to pour oil upon his head and perfumes 
upon his feet. His disciples repulsed them at times as 
importunate ; but Jesus, who loved old customs and all 
that indicates simplicity of heart, repaired the evil 
done by his too zealous friends. He protected those 
who desired to honor him.|| So the children and the 
women adored him. The reproach of alienating from 
their families these delicate beings, always easily 
charmed away, was one of those oftenest made by his 
enemies. § 

The infant religion was thus in many respects a 
movement of women and children. These laat formed 
about Jesus, as it were, a young guard in the inaugu- 
ration of his innocent royalty, and bestowed little ova- 
tions upon him with which he was much pleased, call- 
ing him " son of David," crying Hosanna^ and bearing 
palms around him. Jesus, like Savonarola, used them 
perhaps, as instruments for pious missions ; he was 

* Matt., XXI, 7-8. 

t Matt., XIX, 13 seqq.; Mark, ix, 35; x, 13 seqq.; Luke, xviii, 15-16. 

I lUA. 

II Matt., XXVI, 7 seqq.; Mark, xiv, 3 seqq.; Luke, vii, 37 seqq. 

\ Gospel of Marcioa, addition to v, 2 of ch. xxiii of Luke (Epiph. , Adv. hcer. , 
XLii,ll). If the abridgements of Marcion have no critical value, it is not the 
Bame with his additions when they may proceed not from a prejudgment, but 
from the condition of the manuscripts which he used. 

f The cry uttered in the procession of the feast of Tabernacles, while shaking 
palms. Mischna, Sulcka, in, 8. This usage still exists among the Israelites. 



1S6 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

pleased to see these young apostles, who did not com- 
promise him, rushing in advance, and bestowing titles 
upon him which he dared not take himself. He did 
not check them, and when asked if he heard, he re- 
sponded evasively that the praise which falls from 
young lips is the most pleasing to God.* 

He lost no occasion to repeat that the little ones are 
sacred beings,f that the kingdom of God belongs to 
the little children,:!: that it is necessary to become a lit- 
tle child in order to enter it,|| that it must be received 
as a little child,§ that the heavenly Father hides his 
secrets from the wise and reveals them unto babes.^" 
To him, the idea of his disciples is confounded with 
that of little children.** One day, when they had 
among themselves one of those disputes concerning 
precedence, which were not rare, Jesus took a little 
child and set him in the midst of them, and said : " Be- 
hold the greatest ; whosoever shall humble himself as 
this little child, the same is the greatest in the king- 
dom of heaven."f f 

It was childhood, indeed, in its divine spontaneity, 
in its innocent sparkles of joy, which was taking pos- 
session of the earth. All believed at every moment 
that the kingdom so intensely longed for was on the 
point of appearing. Each saw himself already seated 
upon a throne:]::!: beside the master. They distributed 
the places ;11 they sought to compute the day. It was 
called the ^' Good News ;" the doctrine had no other 
name. An old word, '^ paradise ^^^ which the Hebrew, 

* Matt., XXI, 15-16. t Matt., XVIII, 5, 10, 14; Luke, xvii, 2. 

t Matt. , XIX, 14; Mark, x, 14; Luke, xviii, 16. 

f Matt., XVIII, 1 seqq.; Mark, ix, 33 seqq.; Luke, ix, 46. 

()Mark, x. lf» f Matt., xi, 25; Luke, x, 21. 

** Matt., X, 46; xvni, 5, 14; Mark, ix, a6; Luke, xvii, 2. 

ft Matt., xviii, 4; Mark, ix. 33-36; Luke, ix, 46-^8. 

XI Luke, XXII, 30. ' Hi Mark, x, 37, 40 41. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 187 

like all the tongues of the East, had borrowed from the 
Persian, and which originally designated the parks of 
the Achsemenides, summed up the dreams of all : a 
delightful garden, in which they should continue for- 
ever the enchanting life that they were leading here 
below.* How long did this intoxication endui'e ? We 
know not. ]Sf"one, during the course of this wonderful 
advent, measured time any more than we measure a 
dream. Duration was suspended ; a week was as a 
century. But whether it filled years or months, the 
dream was so beautiful that humanity has since lived 
by it, and it is our consolation yet to welcome its dimin- 
ished perfume. ITever did so much joy swell the 
breast of man. For a moment, in this effort, the most 
vigorous which it has ever made to raise itself above 
its planet, humanity forgot the leaden weight which 
fastens it to earth, and the woes of life here below. 
Blessed was he who could see with his eyes this divine 
outburst, and share, were it only for a day, this peer- 
less illusion I But more blessed still would Jesus tell 
us, he who, disenthralled from all illusions, shall re- 
produce in himself the heavenly advent, and, with no 
millennial dream, with no chimerical paradise, with 
no signs in the heavens, by the righteousness of his 
will and the poesy of his soul, shall create anew in his 
heart the true kingdom of God I 

* Luke, sxxn. 43; ii, Cor., xxi, 4. Comp. Carm. Sibi/U., prooem., 86: Talm. of 
Bab., Chagiga,i4k b. 



188 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY, 



CHAPTER XIL 



EMBASSY. OP JOHN FROM PRISON TO JESUS.— DEATH 

OF JOHN. —RELATIONS OF HIS SCHOOL WITH 

THAT OF JESUS. 

While joyous Galilee was celebrating in festivals 
the coming of the well-beloved, the sorrowful John, in 
his prison of Machero, was wasting away with waiting 
and with longings. The success of the young master 
whom he had seen some months before at his school, 
reached him. It was said that the Messiah predicted 
by the prophets, he who was to re-establish the king- 
dom of Israel, had come and demonstrated his presence 
in Galilee by his wonderful works. John wislied to 
inquire concerning the truth of this report, and as he 
communicated freely with his disciples, he chose two 
of them to go to Jesus in Galilee. 

The two disciples found Jesus at the height of his 
reputation. The festal air which reigned around him 
astonished them. Accustomed to fasts, to pertinacious 
prayer, to a life all aspiration, they were astounded to 
find themselves suddenly transported into the midst of 
the rejoicings of welcome.f They gave Jesus their 
message : " Art thou he who should come, or do we 

* Matt. , XI, 2 seqq. ; Luke, vri, 18 eeqq. f Matt ^x,. 14 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 189 

look for another?" Jesns, who thenceforth had little 
hesitation concerning his peculiar character as the 
Messiah, enumerated to them the works which were 
to characterize the coming of the kingdom of God, the 
healing of the sick, the good news of speedj salvation 
preached to the poor. All these works he performed. 
" And blessed is he," he added, " whosoever shall not 
be offended in me." We know not whether this an- 
swer found John alive, or in what frame of mind it put 
the austere ascetic. Did he die comforted and certain 
that he whom he had announced, was already living, 
or had he still doubts concerning the mission of Jesus? 
We learn nothing in regard to this. Seeing his school 
continue, however, for a considerable time bj the side 
of the Christian churches, we are led to believe that, 
in spite of his consideration for Jesus, John did not 
consider that he was to realize the divine promises. 
But death came to cut short his perplexities. The un- 
tamable freedom of the recluse was to crown its rest- 
less and persecuted career by the onlj end which was 
worthy of it. 

The indulgent disposition which Antipater had at 
first shown towards John could not be of long duration. 
In the conversations which, according to Christian tra- 
ditions, John had with the tetrarch, he constantly re- 
peated to him that his marriage was unlawful, and 
that he ought to put Herodias away.* It is easy to 
imagine the hatred which the granddaughter of Herod 
the Great must have conceived for this importunate 
adviser. She was waiting only for an opportunity to 
destroy him. 

• Matt. , XIV, 4 seqq.; Mark, vi, 18 seqq. ; Luke, iii, 19^ 



190 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Her daughter, Salome, born of her first marriage, 
and like herself ambitious and dissolute, entered into 
her designs. This year (probably the year 30), Anti- 
pater happened to be on his birth-day at Machero. 
Herod the Great had constructed in the interior of the 
ortress a magnificent palace,* in which the tetrarch 
frequently resided. He .2:ave a grand banquet there, 
during which Salome executed one of those character- 
istic dances which in Syria are not considered unbe- 
coming a person of distinction. Antipater was charmed, 
and asked the dancer what she wished ; she answered, 
at the instigation of her mother : " The head of John 
upon this charger."f Antipater was chagrined ; but 
he would not refuse. A guard took the charger, went 
and cut off the head of the prisoner and brought it to 
her.:|: 

The disciples of the Baptist obtained his body, and 
put it in a tomb. The people were very much discon- 
tented. Six years afterwards, Hareth having attacked 
Antipater, to retake Machero and avenge the dishonor 
of his daughter, Antipater was completely beaten, and 
his defeat was generally regarded as a punishment for 
the murder of John.|| 

The news of this deed was borne to Jesus by the 
disciples of the Baptist themselves.§ The last step 
which John had taken in regard to Jesus, had resulted 
in establishing strict lines between the two schools. 
Jesus, fearing an increase of ill-will on the part of An- 
tipater, took the precaution to retire into the desert.T 

* Jos. , Be BeUo Jud., VII. vi, 2. 

+ Large dishes, upon which, in the East, they serve liquors and meats. 

t Matt. XIV, 3 seqq.; Mark, vi, 14-29; Jos., Ant., XVIII, v, 2. 

I Josephus, Ant. , XVIII, x, 1 and 2. ^ Matt. , XIT, 12. 

II Matt. , XIV, 13. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 191 

JMany people followed him thither. Thanks to their 
extreme frugality, the sacred flock lived there ; they 
naturally believed that they saw in that a miracle.* 
From this moment; Jesus never spoke of John, but 
with redoubled admiration. He unhesitatingly de- 
claredf that he was more than a prophet, that the Law 
and the ancient prophets had been in force only up to 
his time, J that he had abrogated them, but that the 
kingdom of heaven would abrogate him in his turn. 
In short, he gave him. in the economy of the Christian 
mystery, a peculiar place, which made him the bond 
of union between the Old Testament and the advent of 
the new reign. 

The prophet Malachi, whose opinion on this enjoyed 
high consideration,]! had announced with much force 
a precursor of the Messiah^ who should prepare men 
for the final renewal, a messenger who should come 
to smooth the way before the chosen of God. This 
messenger was none other than the prophet Elijah, 
who, according to a wide-spread belief, was soon to 
descend from heaven, whither he had been translated, 
to make men ready by repentance for the great advent 
and reconcile God with his people.§ Sometimes with 
Elijah was associated either the patriarch Enoch, to 
whom, for one or two centuries, a lofty sanctity had 
been attributed,^" or Jeremiah,** who was considered 
a sort of protecting genius of the people, continually 
praying for tliem before the throne of God.ff This 
idea of two ancient prophets who were to be re-ani- 

* Matt., XIV, 15 seqq. ; Mark, vi, 35 seqq.; Luke, ix, 11 seqq. ; John, vi, 2 seqq. 
t Matt. , XI, 7 seqq. ; Luke, vii, 24 seqq. t Matt. , xi, 12-13; Luke, xvi, 16, 

I Malachi, iii and iv; Ecdisiast., xlvui, 10. See above, ch. vi. 
^Matt., xr, 14; xvii, 10; Mark, vi, 15; viii, 28; ix. 10 seqq. ; Luke, ix, 8, 19. 
i Ecclesia^tes, xliv, 16. ** Matt., xvi, 14. ft II Mace, xv. 13 seqq 



192 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

mated in order to serve as precursors of the Messiah, 
is foiiud so strikingly in the doctrine of the Parsees, 
that we are strongly inclined to believe it came from 
that quarter.* However this may be, it was, at the 
time of Jesus, an integral portion of the Jewish theories 
of the Messiah. It was admitted that the appearance 
•of '' two faithful witnesses," clad in garments of peni- 
tence, won Id be the prelude to the great drama which 
was to be unfolded to the terror-stricken Universe.f 

We can understand how, with these ideas, Jesus and 
his disciples could not hesitate concerning the mission 
of John the Baptist. When the Scribes made this 
objection to them, that there could be no question of 
the Messiah, since Elias had not yet comej, they an- 
swered that Elias had come, that John was Elias again 
alive. II By his method of life, by his opposition to 
established political powers, John recalled, indeed, 
that wonderful form of the ancient history of Israel. § 
Jesus was inexhaustible upon the merits and excellence 
of his precursor. He said that among the children of 
men there was none born greater than he. He blamed the 
Pharisees and the doctors severely, that they had not 
accepted his baptism, and been converted by his voice.T 

The disciples of Jesus were faithful to these princi- 
ples of their master. Respect for John was a constant 
tradition in the first Christian generation.** They sup- 
posed him to be a relative of Jesus.ff To found the 
mission of Jesus upon a testimony admitted by all, it 

* Texts cited by Anquetil-Duperron, Zend-Avesta, 1,2nd part, p. 46, corrected by 
Spiegel, in the ZcitJichri/t der deutsdien morgenlccndischen Gesdlschaft, 1, 261 seqq. 
Extracts from the Jamaxp-Nameh, in the Avesta of Spiegel, I, p. 34. None oftitS 
Farsee texts which really implies the idea of re-animated prophets and precur- 
sors is ancient; but the ideas contained in these texts appear much anterior to 
the time of their compilation. f ^^'- • ^i' ^ seqq. | Mark., ix, 10. 

jt Matt., XI, 14; xvii, 10-13; Mark, vi, 15; ix, 10-12; Luke, ix, 8; John, i, 21-26. 

§ Luke, 1, 17. Y Matt, XXI, 32; Luke, VII, 29-30. »*^cfc,xix,4. ftl'Uke,!. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 193 

was related that John, when he first saw Jesns, pro- 
claimed him the Messiah, that he recognized himself 
his inferior, unworthy to loose the latchets ot his 
shoes ; that he refused at first to baptize him and in- 
sisted that it was he who should be baptized by 
Jesus.* These were however exaggerations, which the 
questioning form of the last message of John sufiici- 
ently refute. f But, in a more general sense John re- 
mained in Christian legend what he was in reality, the 
austere preparer, the solemn preacher of penitence 
before the joys of the bridegroom's coming, the pro- 
phet who announces the kingdom of God and dies be- 
fore seeing it. Giant of Christian origins, this eater 
of locusts and of wild honey, this stern redresser of 
wrongs, was the absinth which prepared the lips for 
the sweetness of the kingdom of God. The victim 
of Herodias opened the era of Christian martyrs ; he 
was the first witness of * the new conscience. Worldlings, 
who recognized in him their real enemy, could not 
permit him to live; his mutilated corpse, stretched 
across the threshold of Christianity, traced the bloody 
way which so many otheis should pass after him. 

The school of John did not die with its founder. It 
lived for some time, distinct from that of Jesus, and at 
first on good terms with it. Many years after the 
death of the two masters, men were still baptized af- 
ter the baptism of John. Some persons were at the 
same time members of both schools ; for example, the 
famous ApoUos, the rival of Saint Paul (about the 
year 50), and a considerable number of Christians of 
Ephesus.:]: Josephus attended (in the year 53) the 

* Matt., Ill, 14 seqq. ; Luke, in, 16; John, i, 15 seqq.; v, 32-33. 
■^ Matt. , XI, 2 seqq. ; Luke, vii, 18 seqq. 
Adi, xviii, 25 ; xix, 1-5. Cf. ^^iph. , Adv. Imr, , xxx, 16. 
9 



194 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

school of an ascetic named Banou,"^ who presents the 
greatest resemblance to John the Baptist, and who 
may have been of his school. This Banouf lived in 
the desert, clad in the leaves of the trees ; he ate only 
plants or wild fruits, and baptized himself in cold wa- 
ter frequently during the day and night to purify him- 
self. James, he who was called the "brother of the 
Lord" (there is perhaps some confusion of similar 
names here), observed an analogous ascetism.:j: After- 
wards, towards the year 80, Baptism became engaged 
in a struggle with Ohristianism, especially in Asia Minor. 
John the Evangelist appears to combat it in an indi- 
rect manner. 1 One of the Sybilline poems seems to 
proceed from this school. As to the sects of Hemer- 
obaptists, Baptists, Elchasaites, {Sabians, Mogtasila of 
the Arabic writers),Tr who in the second century swarm- 
ed in Syria, Palestine, and Babylonia, and the rem- 
nants of whom yet remain amo*ng the Mendaites, call- 
ed " Christians of St. John," they are of the same 
origin as the movement of John the Baptist, rather 
than the authentic succession of John. The true 
school of the latter, half blended with Christianity, 
passed into a small Christian heresy and became ex- 
tinct in obscurity. John had plainly seen the direc- 
tion of the future. If he had yielded to a paltry riv- 
alry, he would now be forgotten among the multitude 
of the sectaries of his time. By abnegation, he achieved 
glory and a unique position in the religious pantheon 
of humanity. 

* Vita. 2. 

t Can this be the Bounai who is numbered bv the Talmud (Bab. , Sanhedrin, 43 
a), among the disciples of Jesus. t Hegesippus, in Eusebius, H. E., II, 23. 

IJ John, I, 26, 33; iv, 2; I John, v, 6, Cf. Acts, x, 47. 

i Book IV. See especially v, 157 seqq. 

\ I recall that Sahians is the Aramajan equivalent of the word " Baptists." 
Mogtasila has the same meaning in Arabic 



LIFE OF JESUS. 19^ 



CHAPTEK Xm. 



FIRST ATTEMPTS UPON JERUSALEM. 

Jesus, nearly every year, went to Jerusalem to cel- 
ebrate the feast of the Passover. The details of each 
of these journeys are little known ; for the synoptics 
do not speak of them,* and the notes of the fourth 
gospel are here very confused. f It was, as it seems, 
in the year 31, and certainly, after the death of John, 
that the most important visit of Jesus to the capital 
took place. Many of the disciples followed him. Al- 
though Jesus attached even then little importance to 
the pilgrimage, he conformed in order not to wound 
Jewish opinions, with which he had not yet brok- 
en. These journeys, moreover, were essential to 
his design ; for he felt already that, in order to per- 

* They suppose them, however, obscurely (Matt., xxiii, 37; Luke, xm, 34). 
They know as well as John the relations of Jesus with Joseph of Arimathea. 
Luke even (x, 38 42) knows the family of Bethany. Luke (ix, .51-5 1) , has a vague 
perception of the system of the fourth Evangelist concerning the journeys of 
Jesus. Many discourses against the Pharisees and the Sadducees, placed by the 
synoptics in Galilee, have hardly any meaning except at Jerusalem. Finally, 
the lapse of eight days is much too short to explain all that must have happened 
betv/een the arrival of Jesus in that city and his death. 

t Two pilgrimages are clearly indicated (Jolm. ii, 13, and v, 1) , without speak- 
ing of the last journey (vii, 10), after which Jesus did not return into Galilee. 
The first had taken place while John was still baptizing. It appertained, conse- 
(jucntly, to the passover of the year 29. But the circumstances given as of this 
joarney are of a more advanced period. (Comp. especially John, ii, 14 seqq., 
uiid Matt, XXI, 12-13; Mark, 15-17; Luke, xix, 45-46). There are evidently 
transpositions of dates in these chapters of John, or more likely he haa conlbunded 
the circumstances of different journeys. 



196 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

form a part of the first order, he must leave Galilee 
and attack Judaisra in its stronghold, wliich was Jeru- 
salem. 

The little Galilean community was here very much 
out of its element. Jerusalem was then nearly the 
same as to-day, a city of pedantry, of acrim.ony, of 
disputes, of hates, of pettiness of spirit. Fanaticism 
was extreme and religious seditions very frequent. The 
Pharisees had the mastery ; the study of the Law, 
carried into the most insignificant minutiae and re- 
duced to questions of casuistry, was the only study. 
This culture, exclusively theological and canonical, 
did not contribute in any degree to polish the mind. 
It was somewhat analogous, to the sterile doctrine of 
the Moslem faquih, to that empty science which pre- 
vails about the Mosque, a great expenditure of time 
and dialectics utterly wasted, and with no profit to the 
discipline of the intellect. The theological education of 
the modern clergy, although very dry, can give no 
idea of that ; for the Eenaissance has introduced into 
all our modes of education, even the most refractory, 
some portion of belles-lettres and of good method, 
which has given scholasticism to a greater or less ex- 
tent, a touch of the humanities. The science of the 
Jewish doctor, of the sqfer or scribe, was purely barbar- 
ous, absurd without compensation, and stripped of 
every moral element.* As a crown of calamity, it 
filled him who had wearied himself in acquiring it, 
with a ludicrous arrogance. Proud of the pretended 
knowledge which had cost him so much labor, the 
Jewish scribe had the same contempt for the Greek 

* We may judge it by the Talmud, the echo of the Jewish scholasticism of the 
time. 



LIFE OF JESUS . 19T 

culture whicli the Mussulman savant has in our day 
for European civilization, and which the old Catholic 
theologian had for the science of the world's people. 
The characteristic of this scholastic culture is to close 
the understanding against all that is delicate, to give 
value only to the difficult puerilities in which life has 
een wasted and which are upheld as the natural oc- 
cupation of persons making a profession of depth.* 

This odious world could not fail to weigh very heav- 
ily upon the tender and delicate souls of the north. 
The contempt of the Hierosolymites for the Gali- 
leans rendered the separation still wider. In this beau- 
tiful temple, the object of their desires, they often 
found nothing but insult. One verse of the psalm 
of the pilgrims, f " I had rather be a doorkeeper in 
the house of my God," seemed written expressly for 
them. A disdainful priesthood smiled at their artless 
devotion, as formerly the clergy in Italy, familiarized 
with the sanctuaries, witnessed coldly and almost jest- 
ingly the fervor of the pilgrim come from afar. The 
Galileans spoke a somewhat corrupt dialect ; their 
pronunciation was vicious ; they confounded the differ- 
ent aspirates^ which led to mistakes that occasioned 
great laughter. :|: In religious matters, they were con- 
sidered ignorant and unorthodox;! the expression 
" Galilean block-head,'' had become proverbial.§ It 
was believed (and not without cause) that the Jewish 
blood was very much mixed among them, and it was 
considered to be an axiom that Galilee could not pro- 

• Jos.. Ant. , XX, XI, 2. f Ps. Lxxxiv (Vulg., txxxiii), 10. 

X Matt., XXVI, 73; Mark, xiv, 70; Ads, ii, 7; Talm. of Bab., Erubin, 53 a seqq.; 
Bereschith rabba, 25 c. 
I Passage of the treatise Ervbin, previously cited. ^ Erubin, loc cit. , 63 b. 



1.98 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

duce a prophet.* Placed thus on the confines of Ju- 
daism and almost outside, the poor Galileans had only 
a passage of Isaiah badly interpreted! to sustain their 
hopes: "The Lmd of Zabulon, and the land of I^eph- 
talim, by the way of the sea, J Galilee of the gentiles ; 
the people which sat in darkness saw great light ; and 
to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, 
light is sprung up." The reputation of the native city 
of Jesus was particularly bad. It was a popular prov- 
erb : " Can there any good thing come out of ISTazar- 
eth?"l 

The utter barrenness of nature in the environs of 
Jerusalem must have added to the distaste of Jesus. 
The valleys have no water ; the soil is parched and 
stony. Looking down into the depression of the Dead 
Sea, the view is somewhat striking, otherwise it is 
monotonous. The hill of Mizpah alone, with its 
memories of the most ancient history of Israel, invites 
the eye. The city presented, in the time of Jesus, 
very nearly the same aspect that it does to-day. It 
had scarcely any ancient monuments, for up to the 
lime of the Asinoneans, the Jews were still strangers 
to all the arts ; John Hyrcanus began to embellish it, 
and Herod the Great had made it one of the most su- 
perb cities of the East. The Herodian constructions 
vied with the most finished of antiquity by their 
grand character, the perfection of their execution, and 
the beauty of the materials.§ A multitude of superb 
tombs, of an original taste, were built about the same 
time in the environs of Jerusalem. T The style of these 

* John, VII, 52. + IX, 1-2; Matt. , iv, 13 seqq. 

t See above, p. 163, note % . |) John, i, 46. 

I Jos., Ant., XV,viil-xx; B. J. V, v, 6; Mark, xii, 1-2. 
\ Tombs called Tombs of the Judges, ■of the Kingg, of Absalom, of Zecharia, 



LIFE OF JESUS. 



199 



monninents was Greek, but adapted to the usages of 
the Jews, and considerably modified according to their 
principles. Ornaments of living sculpture, which the 
Herods permitted, to the great displeasure of the 
rigorists, were banished and replaced by vegetable 
decorations. The taste of the ancient inhabitants of 
Phoenicia and Palestine for monolithic monuments 
carved out of the solid, rock, seemed to be revived in 
these singular tombs excavated in the rock, in which 
the Greek orders are so grotesquely applied to a trog- 
lodyte architecture. Jesus, who considered these 
works of art a pompous display of vanity, looked upon 
all these monuments with a reproachful eye.* His 
absolute spiritualism and his fixed opinion that the 
form of the old world was about to pass away, left him 
no taste save for the things of the heart. 

The temple in the time of Jesus, was entirely new, 
and the exterior works were not yet finished. Herod 
had commenced its reconstruction in the year 20 or 21 
before the Christian era, to make it harmonize with 
his other edifices. The body of the temple was fin- 
ished in eighteen months, the porticoes in eight 
years ;f but the accessory portions were continued 
slowly and were finished but a short time before the 
taking of Jerasalem.^ Jesus probably saw men 
working there, not without some secret displeasure. 
These expectations of a long future seemed, as it were, 
an insult to his speedy advent. More clairvoyant than 
the unbelievers and the fanatics he divined that these 



of Jehosaphat, of St. James. Compare the description of the tomb of the Mac- 
cabees at Modin (Mace. , xiii, 27 seqq. 

* Matt. , xxui, 'i7,29; xxiv,lseqq. ; Mark, xiii, 1 seqq. ; Luke, xix, 44, xxr, 6 
seqq. Compare Book of Enoch, xcvii, 13-14; Talm. of Bab. , Schdbbath, 33 b. 

t Jos., ^n(., XV, XI, 5, 6. J /Wd., XX, IX, 7; John, 11,20. 



200 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

superb constructions were destined for a short dura- 
tion . * 

Tiie temple, however, formed a wonderfully impos- 
ing whole, of which the present haram,\ notwith- 
standing its beauty, can hardly give an idea. The 
courts and the surrounding porticoes served daily as 
the rendezvous of a considerablejhrong, so much ^o*^kJ\ 
that this large space was by times, the temple, the'^ 
forum, the tribunal and the univeTSity. All the reli- 
gious discussions of the Jewish scholars, all the can- 
onical teachings, the trials even and civil causes, in a 
word, all the activity of the nation, was concentrated 
here.:|: It was a perpetual din of argument, an arena 
of disputes, resounding with sophisms and subtleties. 
The temple had thus much similarity to a Moslem 
mosque. Full of respect, at this period, for strange re- 
ligions^ when they remained upon their own ground,] 
the Komans forbade themselves the entrance of the 
sanctuary ; Greek and Latin inscriptions marked the 
point to which it was lawful for non-Jews to go.§ But 
the Antonia tower, the head- quarters of the Roman 
force, commanded the whole enclosure and permitted 
whatever took place within to be seen.^ The police reg- 
ulations of the temple appertained to the Jews ; a cap- 
tain of the temple was entrusted with its superinten- 
dance, caused the gates to be opened and shut, pre- 
vented any one from crossing the enclosure with a 

* Matt. , XXIV, 2; xxvi, 61; xxvii, 40; Mark, xiii, 2; xiv, 58; xv, 29; Luke, 
XXI, G; John, II, 19-20. 

t There i^ no doubt that the temple and its enclosure occupied the site of the 
Mosque of Omar and of the haram. or Sacred Court, which surrounded the 
Mosque. The terreplein of the haram is, in some parts, especially at the place 
in which the Jews meet to weep, the base of the temple of Herod. 

1 Luke, II, 46 seqq. ; Mischna, Sanhedrin, x, 2. || Suet., Aug. , 93 

S Philo, Legatio ad Caium, ^ 31; Jos., J5. J , V, v, 2; VI, ii, 4; Acts, xxi, 28. 

t Considerable traces of the tower of Antonia are yet seen in the northern part 
of the haram. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 201 

stick in his hand, with dusty shoes, while carrying- 
packages, or to shorten the road.* Above all 
there was scrupulous watch that none should enter 
the inner porches while in a state of impurity accord- 
ing to the law. Women had an apartment entireij' 
separate. 

It was here that Jesus passed his days, while he re- 
mained at Jerusalem. The period of the feasts brought 
to this city an extraordinary influx. Gathered into 
messes of ten or twenty persons, the pilgrims invaded 
all places, and lived in that disorderly aggregation in 
which the East delights.f Jesus was lost in the mul- 
titude, and his poor Galileans grouped about him made 
but a sorry appearance. He probably felt that here he 
was in a hostile world which would receive him only 
with disdain. All that he saw repulsed him. The 
temple, much thronged, like places of devotion in 
general, presented an appearance far from edifying. 
The performance of the rites involved a multitude 
of repulsive details, especially the mercantile opera- 
tions, for which actual shops were established in the 
sacred enclosure. Animals were sold for the sacrifices ; 
there were also tables for the exchange of money ; at 
times it seemed a bazaar. The lower officers of the tem- 
ple doubtless performed their functions with the irreli- 
gious vulgarity which has marked sacristans in all 
time. This profane and careless manner in the con- 
duct of holy things wounded the religious sentiment 
of Jesus, which was sometimes carried even to sever- 
ity.:!: He said that they had made of the house of 
prayer a den of thieves. One day even, it is said, 

* Mischna, Berakoth, ix, 5; Talm. of Bah., Jebamoth, 6 b; Mark, xi, 16. 
+ Jos., J5. .7^., II, XIV, 3; VI, IX, 3. Comp. Ps. , cxxxni (Vulg., cxxxti). 
J Mark, xi,16. 

9* 



202 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

overcome with indignation, he scourged these base 
venders and overturned their tables.* Upon the whole, 
he had little love for the temple. The worship which 
he had conceived for his Father, had notlung to do 
with scenes of butchery. All these old Jewish insti- 
tutions displeased him, and he suffered from being 
obliged to conform to them. So, likewise, neither tho 
temple nor its site inspired pious sentiments in the 
bosom of Christianity, save among Judaizing Chris- 
tians. The real new men held in aversion this ancient 
sacred place. Constantino and the first Christian em- 
perors permitted the pagan constructions of Hadrianf 
to remain. It was the enemies of Christianity, like 
Julian, who held this place in esteem.:j: When Omar 
entered Jerusalem the site of the temple had been 
purposely profaned out of hate to the Jews.f Islam, 
that is to say, a sort of resurrection of Judaism in its 
exclusively Semitic form, restored its honors. This 
place has always been anti-Christian. 

The arrogance of the Jews completed the discontent 
of Jesus, and rendered life in Jerusalem painful to 
him. In proportion as the grand ideas of Israel ma- 
tured, the priesthood declined. The institution of 
synagogues had given to the interpreter of the Law, 
the doctor, great superiority over the priest. There 
were priests only in Jerusalem, and there even, re- 
duced to functions entirely ritual, much like our par- 
ish priests who are excluded from preaching, they 
were over-awed by the orator of the synagogue, the 



:= Matt., XXI, 12 seqq. ; Mark, xi, 15 seqq.; Luke, xix, 45 seqq. ; John, ii, 14 seqq. 
t Itin. a Burdig. Eierus.,]^. 152 (edit. Schott) ; St. Jerome, in Is., ii, 8, and in 
Matt., XXIV, 15. 
t Ammianus Marcellinus, XXIII, 4. 
I Eutychius, Ann., ii,286 seqq. (Oxford, 1659}. 



LIFE OF JESTJS. 203 

casuist, the sofer or scribe, layman as he was. The 
celebrated men of the Talmnd are not priests ; they 
are learned men, according to the ideas of the time. 
The high priest of Jerusalem held, it is true, a rank 
very elevated in the nation, but he was by no means 
at the head of the religious movement. The sovereign 
pontiff, whose dignity had already been degraded by 
Herod,* became more and more a E-oman function- 
ary,f who was recalled frequently in order to render 
the charge profitable to many. Opposed to the Phar- 
isees, highly exalted lay zealots, the priests were 
nearly all Sadducees, that is to say, members of this 
incredulous aristocracy which had formed around the 
temple and lived by the altar, but saw its vanity.J The 
sacerdotal caste was separated so widely from the na- 
tional sentiment and the great religious tide which 
swayed the people, that the name of Sadducee {Sa- 
doki)^ which at first designated simply a member of 
the sacerdotal family of Sadok, had become synony- 
mous with '^ materialist " and " Epicurean." 

A still worse element had begun, since the reign of 
Herod the Great, to corrupt the high-priesthood. 
Herod having become enamoured of Mariamne, daugh- 
ter of Simon, himself the son of Boethus of Alexan- 
dria, and desiring to marry her (towards the year 28 
B. C), saw no other way to ennoble his father-in-law 
and raise him to his own level, but by making him 
high-priest. This intriguing family continued master, 
almost without interruption, of the sovereign pontifi- 
cate for thirty-five years. || Closely allied to the reign- 
ing family, it lost it only after the deposition of Arche- 

* Jos., An'.-, XV, III, 1, 3. t Jos., Ant, xviii, 11; 

tAcU, iv,lseqq ; v, 17; Jos., Anl., XX, ix, 1; Pirlce- Aboth, i,10. 

I Jos., Ant.,XY, IX, 3; XVII, yi, 4; xiii, 1; XVIII, i, 1; ii.l; XIX, vi, 2;Tin, 1. 



204 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

laiis, and recovered it (A. D. 42) after Herod Agrippa 
had for some time been restoring the work of Herod 
the Great. Under' the name of BoetTiusim^ was thus 
formed a new sacerdotal nobilitv, very worldly and 
little devout, which almost coalesced with the Sado- 
kites. The Boethusim, in the Talmud and the rabbin- 
ical writings, are set forth as a species of infidels and 
always in company with the Sadducees.f From all 
this resulted about the temple a species of Court of 
Eome, living by politics, little sympathetic with ex- 
cesses of zeal, dreading them even, indisposed to hear 
of holy personages or of innovators, for its profit lay 
in the established routine. These epicurean priests 
had not the violence of the Pharisees; they cared only 
for repose ; it was their moral carelessness, their chill- 
ing irreligion at which Jesus revolted. Although 
very different, the priests and the Pharisees were thus 
united in his antipathies. Bat, a stranger and without 
influence, he was long compelled to lock his discontent 
within himself, and to communicate his sentiments 
only to the intimate society which accompanied him. 

Before the last visit, which was by far the longest 
of all that he made to Jerusalem, and which terminated 
in his death, Jesus endeavored, however, to make him- 
self heard. Pie preached ; he was talked of ; people 
spoke about certain acts which were considered mfrac- 

* This name is found only in the Jewish documents. I think that the " Hero- 
dians " of the Gospel are the Boethmim. 

t Treatise AboLh Nathan, 5; Soferim, iii, hal., 5; Mischna, Mmachoth, x, 3; Talm. 
of Bab., Schalbath, IIH a. The na.me of the Boethusim is often exchanged in the 
Talmudic books with that of the Sadducees, or with the word Minim (hereticst. 
Compare Thosiphta Joma, i, with Talm. of Jems., same treatise, r, h, and Talm. 
of Bab. , same treatise, 19 h; Thos. Sukka, iii, with Talm. of Bab. , same treatise, 
43 h; Thos. ibid. , farther on , with Talm. of Bab. , same treatise. 48 b; Thos. Bosch- 
hasschana, i, with Mischna, same treatise, ii, 1 , Talm. of Jerus.,same treatise, ii, 
1. and Talm. of Bab. , same treatise, 22 b; Thos. Menaclioth, x, with Mischna, same 
treatise, x, 3; Talm. of Bab., same treatise, 65 a, Mischna, Cluxgiga, ii, 4, and Me- 
gillath Taanith, i; Thos. /odi^m. ii, with Talm of Jerus. ,j8a6a Bathra,\my 1, 
Talm, of Bab. , same treatise, 115 & and Megillath Taanith, v. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 205 

ulons. But from all this resulted no established cliurch 
at Jerusalem, no group of Hierosolymite disciples. The 
charming teacher, who pardoned all if they only loved 
him, found feeble echo in this sanctuary of vain dis- 
putes and obsolete sacrifices. Its result to him was 
only certain advantageous relations, the fruits of which 
he afterwards reaped. It does not appear that he then 
made the acquaintance of the family of Bethany which 
gave him, in the midst of the trials of his last months, 
so much consolation. But at an early period he at- 
tracted the attention of a certain Mcodemus, a rich 
Pharisee, member of the Sanhedrin, and much thought 
of at Jerusalem.* This man, who appears to have 
been honorable and earnest, felt an attraction towards 
the young Galilean. "Not wishing to compromise him- 
self, he came to see him by night, and had a long con- 
versation. f He received, doubtless, a favorable im- 
pression from it, for at a later period he defended Jesus 
against the accusations of his fellow Pharisees,:}: and, 
after the death of Jesus, we find him surrounding with 
his pious cares the dead body of the master.] ^'icode- 
mus did not become a Christian ; he thought it due to 
his position not to enter into a revolutionary move- 
ment, which as yet numbered no notable adherents. 
But he bore evidently much friendship for Jesus, and 
rendered him some services, though unable to snatch 
liim from a death the fiat of which, at the period which 
we have now reached, was already written. 

* It seems that there is some question concerning him in the Talmud. Talm. 
of Bab., Taanilh, 20 a; Gittin, 56 a; Kdvboth, 66 5; treatise AhotTi Nathan,^ vii; Mid- 
rasch rabba, Eka. 64 a. The passage Taaniih identifies him with Bounai, who, ac- 
cording to Sanhedrin (see above, p. 194, note f), was a disciple of Jesus. But if 
Bounai is the Banou of Josephus, this conjunction is without force. 

t John III, 1 seqq ; vii, 50, We are certainly at liberty to believe that the 
text even of the conversation is only a creation of John. 

J John, VII, 50 seqq. J John, xix, 39. 



206 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

As to the famous doctors of the time, Jesus appears 
not to have had any communication with them. Hillel 
and Schammai were dead ; the greatest authority of 
the time was Gamaliel, grandson of Hillel. He was 
liberal in mind, and a man of the world, open to pro- 
fane studies, and inclined to tolerance by his intercourse 
with the best society.* Contrary to the strict Phari- 
sees, who walked veiled or with closed eyes, he looked 
at women, even pagans. f Tradition pardoned this to 
him, as well as his knowledge of Greek, because he 
had access to the court. J After the death of Jesus, he ex- 
pressed very moderate views concerning the new sect.| 
St. Paul came from his school. § But it is highly pro- 
bable that Jesus never entered it. 
' One idea at least Jesus carried away from Jerusa- 
lem, an idea which from this time forth appears rooted 
in him, that there is no compromise possible with the 
ancient Jewish religion. The abolition of the sacrifices 
which had caused him so much disgust, the suppression 
of an impions and haughty priesthood, and in a gene- 
ral sense the abrogation of the Law appeared to him 
an absolute necessity. From this moment, he takes 
the position no longer of the Jewish reformer, but of a 
destroyer of Judaism. Some of the partisans of Mebsi- 
anic ideas had already supposed that the Messiah 
would bring a new law, which would be common to 
the whole earth.T The Essenes, who were hardly 
Jews, appear also to have been indifferent to the tem- 
ple and to the Mosaic observances. But this hardi- 

* Mischna; Bdba Metsia, v, 8; Talm. of Bab. , Sola, 49 & 
+ Talm. of .Terus., J5era,fco(/i, ix, 2. 
1 Passage Sota, previously cited, and Bala Kama, 83 a. 
I Ads, V, .34 seqq. § Acts, xxn, 3. 

\ Orac. sib.,}). Ill, 573 scqq. ; 715 seqq.; 7.56-58. Compare the Targum of Jona- 
than, Is., XII, 3. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 207 

hood was only isolated or not avowed. Jesus first 
dared to say that from his time, or rather from that of 
John,* the Law existed no more. If he sometimes 
used terms more discreet,f it was that he might not 
shock received prejudices too violently. When he 
was pushed to an issue, he put aside all veils, and de- 
clared that the Law was no longer in force. He made 
use on this subject of strong comparisons: "Men do 
not mend," he said, " old with new. They do not put 
new wine into old bottles.":!: See now in practice his 
acts as a master and a creator. This temple excluded non- 
Jews from its pale by contemptuous placards. Jesus 
cares not for it. Jesus declares that all men of good 
will, all men who welcome and love him, are children 
of Abraham. II Pride of blood seems to him the chief 
enemy to be fought. Jesus, in other words, is no 
longer a Jew. He is a revolutionist of the highest 
grade; he calls all men to a religion founded solely 
upon their childhood to God. He proclaims the rights 
of man, not the rights of the Jew ; the religion of man, 
not the religion of the Jew ; the deliverance of man, 
not the deliverance of the Jew.g Ah ! we are far from 
a Juda, the Gaulonite, a Mathias Margaloth, preach- 
ing revolution in the name of the Law ! The religion 
of humanity, established not upon race, but upon the 
heart, is founded. Moses is obsolete^^he temple has no 
longer any reason to be.and is irrevocabl}^ doomed. 

* Luke, XVI, 16. The passage in Matthew, xi, 12-13, is less clear, but can hare 
no other meaning. 

t Matt., V, 17-18 (Cf. Talm. of Bsib., ScTidbiath, 116 6). This passage is not in 
contiadiction with those in which the abolition of the Law is implied. It signi* 
fies only that in Jesus all the types of the Old Testament are accomplished. Cf. 
Luke, XVI, 17. 

t Matt., IX, 16-17; Luke, v, 36 seqq. || Luke, xix, 9. 

4 Matt., XXIV, l4; xxvtii,19; Mark, xm, 10; xvi,15; Luke, xxiv, 47. 



208 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTEE XIV. 



BBLATIOHS OF JESUS WITH THE PAGANS AND THE 
SAMARITANS. 



In accordance with these principles, he disdained 
everything which was not the religion of the heart. 
The vain practices of devotees,* external rigorism, 
which relies upon grimaces for salvation, found in 
him a mortal enemy. He concerned himself little 
about the fasts. f He preferred the forgiveness of an 
injury to a sacrifice.:!: The love of God, charity, mu- 
tual forgiveness, this is all his law.j l!To thing less 
priestly. . The priest, by reason of his profession, urges 
always to public sacrifice, of which he is the necessary 
ininister; he diverts from private prayer, which is a 
means of dispensing with him. We should search the 
Gospel in vain for a religious rite commanded by Je- 
sus. Baptism has to him but a secondary import- 
ance ;§ and as to prayer, it avails nothing unless it 
comes from the heart. Many, as it always happens, 
thought to replace by the willingness of weak souls 
the true love of the right, and imagined that they 

; * Matt. , XV, 9. t Matt. , ix, 14; xi, 19. 

J 1 Matt, V, 23 seqq.; ix, 13; xii, 7. 

B Matt. , XXII, 37 seqq. ; Mark, xii, 28 seqq. ; Luke; x, 25 seqq. 

iMatt., HI, 15; I Cor., i, 17. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 209 

could conquer the kingdom of heaven by Raying to 
him, " Rabbi^ Mabhi /" he repelled them, and pro- 
claimed that his religion was to do well.* He often 
cited this passage from Isaiah : '' This people honoreth 
me with their lips, bat their heart is far from me."f 

The Sabbath was the cardinal point npon which was 
reared the edifice of pharisaical scruples and subtilties. 
This ancient and transcendant institution had become 
a pretext for miserable disputes to the casuists, and a 
source of superstitious beliefs. :j: It was believed that 
nature observed it; all intermittent springs were con- 
sidered " sabbatical."! 

It was this point also upon which Jesus was most 
pleased to defy his adversaries. § He openly violated 
the Sabbath, and responded to the reproaches which 
it brought upon him with cutting raillery. With 
stronger reason he contemned a multitude of modern 
observances, which tradition had added to the Law, 
and which, from this very fact, were most dear to tlie 
bigoted. Ablutions, fine-drawn distinctions between 
things pure and impure, he could not abide ; '^ Can 
you also, said he to them, wash your souls? Not 
that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but 
that which cometh out of his heart."T The Pharisees, 
the propagators of these mummeries, were the mark 
of all his blows. He accused them of overdoing the 
Law, of inventing impossible precepts in order to cre- 
ate among men occasions of sin; "Blind leaders of the 

* Matt., vii, 27; Luke, vi, 46. 

•)■ Matt. , XV. 8; Mark, vii, 6. Cf. Isaiah, xxix, 13. 

X See especially the treatise Schabhath of the Mischna, and the Book of the Ju- 
hilee (translated from the Ethiopian in the Jahrbucher of Ewald, 2 and 3) , ch. l. 

II Jos., j5. ./., VII, V, 1; Pliny, H. N., XXXI, 18. Cf. Thomson, The Land and 
the Book, I, 406 seqq. 

^ Matt. , XII, 1-14; Mark, ii, 23-28; Luke, vi, 1-5; xni, 14 seqq.; xiv, 1 seqq. 

^ Matt. , xn, 34; xv, 1 seqq. ; 12 seqq. ; xxin, entire; Mark, vii, 1 seqq. ; 15 seqq ; 
Luke, VI, 45; xi, 39 seqq. 



210 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

blind, said he, take lieed lest je fall into the ditch." — 
^' Generation of vipers," added he in private, " they 
speak none but good things, but within they are bad ; 
they belie the proverb ; ' Of the abundance of the 
heart the mouth speaketh.' " 

He did not know enough of the Gentiles to think 
of founding upon their conversion anything substan- 
tial. Galilee contained a great number of pagans, but 
not, it would seem, au}^ public and organized worship 
of false gods.* Jesus might have seen this worship 
flaunting in all its splendor in the country of Tyre and 
SidoD, at Cesarea-Philippi, and in Decapolis.f He 
paid little attention to it. We never see in him that 
wearisome pedantry of the Jews of his day, these de- 
clamations against idolatry, so familiar to his co-relig- 
ionists since Alexander, and which fill, for example, 
the book of " VV^isdom.":j: "What strikes him in the 
pagans, is not their idolatry, but their servility. J The 
young Jewish democrat, in this a brother of Juda the 
Gaalonite, admitting no master but God, was deeply 
wounded at the honors with which the persons of sov- 
ereigns were surrounded, and the titles, often menda- 
cious, which were given them. Aside from this, in 
most cases, where he meets pagans, he shows great in- 
dulgence toward them ; at times he declares that he 
has greater hopes of them than of the Jews.§ The 
kingdom of God will be transferred to them. " "When 

* I believe that the pagans of Galilee were found mostly on the frontiers, at 
Kades, for example, but that the very heart of the country, the city of Tiberias 
excepted, was wholly Jewish. The line where the ruins of temples end and the 
ruins of synagogues begin, is now clearly marked as high as lake Huleh (Sama- 
chonitis). The traces of pagan sculpture which it is believed have been found 
at Tell-Hum, are doubtful. The coast, and especially the town of Acre, do not 
form part of Galilee. 

{See above, p. 153. J Chap, xiii seqq. 

Matt., XX, 25, Mark, x, 42; Luke, xxii, 25. 
^ Matt. , VIII, 5 seqq. ; xv, 22 seqq. ; Mark, vii. 25 seqq. ; Luke, rv, 25 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 211 

the lord of a vineyard is dissatisfied with those to 
whom he has let it, what does he do ? He lets it to 
others, who bring him good fruits."* Jesus would 
cleave so much the more strongly to this idea, as the 
conversion of the Gentiles was, according to Jewish 
ideas, one of the most certain signs of the coming of 
the Messiah.f In his kingdom of God, men sit at the 
feast, by the side of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who 
have come from the four winds of heaven, while the 
legitimate heirs of the kingdom are excluded. J Often, 
it is true, we apparently find in the commands which 
he gives his disciples a directly contrary ten denc}^ ; he 
seems to charge them to preach salvation only to the 
orthodox Jews ;| he speaks of pagans in a manner 
conformable to the prejudices of the Jews.§ But we 
must remember that the disciples, whose narrow un- 
derstanding did not comprehend this lofty indifference 
to the condition of the sons of Abraham, may well 
have caused the instructions of their master to bend 
considerably in the direction of their own ideas. Be- 
sides, it is very possible that Jesus varied upon this 
point, even as Mahomet speaks of the Jews, in the 
Koran, sometimes in the most honorable way, some- 
times with extreme harshness, accordingly as he hopes 
to attract them or not to him. Tradition indeed attri- 
butes to Jesus two rules of proselytism in direct con- 
tradiction, which he may have practised by turns ; 
** He that is not against us is for us :" — " He that is 



* Matt., XXI, 41; Mark, xii, 9; Luke, xx, 16. 

t Is., II, 2 seqq.; lx; Amos ix, 11 seqq.; Jerem., iii, 17; Malach., i, 11; 3b&a, 
XIII, IH seqq.; Orac. Sibyl., iii, 715 seqq. Comp. Matt., xxiv, 14; Acts, xv. 15 seqq. 

SMatt. , viii, 11-12; XXI, 33 seqq. ; xxii, 1 seqq. 
Matt, VII, 6; x, 5-6; xv, 24; xxi, 43. 
Matt., V, 46 seqq.; vi, 7, 32; xvin,l7; Luke, vi, 32 seqq.; xii, 30. 



212 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

not with me is against ine."* An impassioned strug- 
gle almost necessarily leads to sucli contradictions. 

It is certain that he numbered among his disciples 
many whom the Jews called " Hellenes . "f This word 
had, in Palestine, very different meanings. It desig- 
nated sometimes pagans, sometimes Jews speaking 
Greek and living among pagans, sometimes people of 
pagan origin converted to Judaism.} Probably it is 
in this last category of Hellenes that Jesus found 
sympathy. § Affiliation to Judaism had many degrees ; 
but proselytes were always inferior to Jews by birth. 
Those of whom we now speak were called " proselytes 
of the gate," or " people fearing God," and were in 
subjection to the precepts of Noah, not to the Mosaic 
precepts.T This very inferiority was doubtless the 
cause which brought them nearer to Jesus and secured 
them his favor. 

He dealt in the same way with the Samaritans, 
Hemmed in like an islet, between the two great pro- 
vinces of Judaism (Judea and Galilee), Samaria formed 
in Palestine a kind of independent territory, which 
preserved the old worship of Garizim, the brother and 
rival of that of Jerusalem. This poor sect, which had 
neither the genius nor the wise organization of Juda- 
ism proper, was treated by the Hierosolymites with 
extreme severity.** They were placed upon the same 
level with the pagans, with one degree more of hatred.ff 

* Matt., xn, 40.; Mark, ix, 30; Luke, ix, 50; xi, 23. 

+ Josephus says so expressly (Ant, XVIII, iii. 3). Comp. John, vii, 33; xii, 
20-21 . t Talm. of Jerus. , Sola, ru ; 1. 

H See in particular, John, vii,35;xii, 20;^cfs, xiv, 1; xvii, 4; xvni,4; xxi, 28. 

§ John, XII, 20; Acts, vii, '27. 

f Mischna, Baba metsia, ix, 12; Talm. o{ Bah., Sank. 56 6; Acts, viu, 27; x, 2, 22. 
35; xiii, 16, 26, 43, 50; xvi, 14; xvii, 4, 17; xviii, 7; Galat., ri, 3; Jos., Ant., XIV, 
VII, 2. 

** Eccksiastes, l, 27-28: John, viii, 48; Jos., Ant., IX, xiv, 3; XI, viii, 6; XII, 
V, 6; Talm. of Jerus., Aboda zara, v, 4; Pesachim, i, 1. 

tl Matt., X, 6; Luke, xvii, 18. Comp. Talm. of Bab., Cholin, 6 o. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 213 

Jesns, by a sort of opposition, was kindly disposed to- 
wards them. Often he prefers Samaritans to orthodox 
Jews. If, in other cases, he seems to forbid his disci- 
ples to go and preach to them, reserving his Gospel 
for the pure Israelites,* this also is undoubtedly a pre- 
cept dictated by circumstances, to which the apostles 
may have given too absolute a meaning. Sometimes, 
indeed, the Samaritans gave him an ill-reception, be- 
cause they supposed him imbued with the prejudices 
of his co-religionists ;f just as in our days the European 
free-thinker is viewed as an enemy by the Mussulman, 
who always believes him a fanatical Christian. Jesus 
rose above these misconceptions. ;]: He had many dis- 
ciples at Sichem, and he spent there at least two days.| 
In one instance, he finds gratitude and true piety only 
in a Samaritan. § One of his most beautiful parables 
is that of the man wounded upon the road to Jericho. 
A priest passes him, sees him and continues his way. 
A Levite passes and does not stop. A Samaritan has 
pity on him, goes to him, pours oil into his wounds, 
and binds them up.T Jesus concludes from this that 
true fraternity is established among men by charity, 
not by religious faith. The " neighbor," who in Juda- 
ism was only the co-religionist, is to him that man who 
has pity on his kind without distinction of sect. Hu- 
man brotherhood in the broadest sense overflows from 
all his. teachings. 

These thoughts, which beset Jesus on his departure 
from Jerusalem, found living expression in an anecdote 
which has been preserved on his return. The road 
from Jerusalem to Galilee passes within half an hour's 
Journey of Sichem,** before the opening of the valley 

* Matt., X, 5-6. t I-uke, IX, 53. t Luke, ix, 50. n -Tohn. iv, 39-43. 

(J l.uke, xvn, 16seqq. ^ Luke, x, 30 seqq. ** Now Naplous. 



214 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

overlooked hj Mounts Ebal and Garizim. This route 
was in general avoided by the pilgrim Jews, who made 
the long circuit of Persea in their journeys rather than 
to expose themselves to the affronts of the Samaritans 
or to ask anything of them. It was unlawful to eat or 
drink with them ;* it was an axiom of certain casuists 
that " a bit of the Samaritans' bread is swine's flesh. "f 
When they took that route, they supplied themselves 
with provisions in advance ; yet they rarely avoided 
quarrels and ill-treatment.J Jesus partook neither of 
these scruples nor these fears. Reaching on his jour- 
ney the point where the valley of Sichem opens upon 
the left, he felt weary, and stopped near a well. The 
Samaritans had, then as now, the custom of giving to 
all the places in their valley, names drawn from pa- 
triarchal remembrances ; they regarded . this well as 
having been given by Jacob to Joseph ; it was proba- 
bly the very same which is even yet called Bir-Ialcoub. 
The disciples entered the valley and went to the town 
to buy provisions ; Jesus seated himself upon the brink 
of the well, looking towards Garizim. 

It was about noon. A woman of Sichem came to 
draw water. Jesus asked to drink, which excited great 
astonishment in the woman, the Jews ordinarily inter- 
dicting themselves from all dealing with the Samari- 
tans. Won over by the conversati5n of Jesus, the 
woman recognized in him a prophet, and, expecting 
reproaches upon her worship, she took the lead : 
" Lord," said she, " our fathers worshipped in this 
mountain; and ye say that Jerusalem is the place 
where men ought to worship." " Woman, believe me," 
Jesus responded to her, " the hour cometh when ye 

* Luke, IX, 53; John, rv, 9. f Mlschna, Schebiit, vin, 10. 

: Jos.,Ath-., XX, V, 1; 5. J"., II, xn, 3; Vita, 52. 



LIFE OF JEStJS. 215 

shall worship neither in this mountain nor yet at Jeru 
salem, but when the true worshippers shall worship 
the Father in spirit and in truth."* 

On the day when he pronounced these words, he 
was indeed the son of God. He for the first time gave 
utterance to the idea upon which shall rest the edifice 
of the everlasting religion. He founded the pure wor- 
ship, of no age, of no clime, which sliall he that of all 
lofty souls to the end of time. ISTot only was his relig- 
ion, that day, the benign religion of humanity, but it 
was the absolute religion ; and if other planets have 
inhabitants endowed with reason and morality, their / 
religion cannot be different from that which Jesusf 
proclaimed at Jacob's well. Man has not been able 
to abide by this worship ; we attain the ideal only for 
a moment. The words of Jesas were a gleam in thick 
night; it has taken eigliteen hundred years for the 
eyes of humanity (what do I say ! of an infinitely small 
portion of humanity) to learn to abide it. But the 
gleam shall become the full day, and, after passing 
through all the circles of error, humanity will return 
to these words, as to the immortal expression of its 
faith and its hopes. 

* John, IV, 21-23. Verse 22, at least the last clause, which expresses a thought 
opposed to that of verses 21-23, appears to have been interpolated. We cannot 
insist very strongly upon the historic value of such a conversation, since Jesus 
alone, or the woman could have related it. But the anecdote of chapter iv of 
John certainly represents one of the most characteristic ideas of Jesus, and the 
greater part of the circumstances of the recital have a striking stamp of truth. 



216 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTEE XY. 



COMMENCEMENT OF THE LEGEND OP JESU S— H IS OWN 
IDEA OP HIS SUPERNATUKAL MISSION. 

Jestjs returned to Galilee having completely lost 
his Jewish faith, and in full revolutionary ardor. His 
ideas are now expressed with perfect clearness. The 
innocent aphorisms of his first prophetic age, borrowed 
in part from preceding masters, the beautiful moral 
teachings of his second period, result in a decided 
policy. The law is to be abolished ; he himself is to 
abolish it.* The Messiah has come ; he himself is the 
Messiah. The kingdom of God is soon to reveal it- 
self ; by him it is to be revealed. He knows well that 
he will be the victim of his hardihood ; but the king- 
dom of God cannot be conquered without violence ; it 
is by crises and anguish that it must be established.f 
The Son of man, after his death, will come in glory, 
accompanied by legions of angels, and those who have 
denied him shall be confounded. 

The boldness of such a conception must not surprise 
us. Jesus had long considered the relation between 

* The hesitation of the immediate disciples of Jesns, a considerable portion of 
whom remained attached to Judaism, might here give rise to some objections. 
But the trial of Jesus leaves no room for any doubt. We shall see that he was 
there treated as a " seducer " The Talmud gives the method followed against 
him as an example of that which ought to be followed against " seducers," who 
seek to overturn the Law of Moses. (Talm. of Jerus. , Sanhedrin, xiv, 16 ; Talm. 
of Bab. , Sanhedrin, 43 a, 67 o). 

t Matt, XI, 12; Luke, xvi, 16 



LIFE OF JESUS. 217 

himself and Grod, that oetween a son and a father. 
What in others would have been insupportable arro- 
gance, in him cannot be treated as unlawful. 

The title of '' son of David," was the first tliat he ac- 
cepted, probably without being concerned in the inno- 
cent frauds by which it was sought to secure it to him. 
The family of David had become, it would seem, long 
since extinct;^ the Asmoneans had never sought to 
attribute to themselves such a descent ; neither Herod 
nor the Romans dreamed for a moment that there was 
among them any representative whatever of the rights 
of the ancient dynasty. But since the end of the As- 
moneaifs, the dream of an unknown descendant of the 
old kings, who should avenge the nation of its 
enemies, agitated all minds. The universal belief 
was that the Messiah would be a son of David, born, 
like him, at Bethlehem.f The first idea of Jesus 
was not precisely that. The memory of David, which 
preoccupied the mass of the Jews, had nothing in com- 
mon with his kingdom of heaven. He believed himself 
the son of God, and not the son of David. His king- 
dom, and the deliverance which he meditated were of 
an entirely different order. But popular opinion on this 
point, did him a species of violence. The immediate con- 
sequence of this proposition : " Jesus is the Messiah," 
was this other proposition: "Jesus is the son of David !" 
He submitted to receive a title without which he could 
hope for no success. He finally, it seems, took pleas- 
ure in it, for he performed most graciously those mir- 

* It is true that certain doctors, such as Hillel and Gamaliel, are given as be- 
ing of the race of David.- But these are very doubtful allegations. If the fami- 
ly of David still formed a distinct and well-known group, how happens it 
that we never see it figuring by the side of the Sadokites, the Boethuses, the As- 
moneans, or the Herods in the great struggles of the times? 

t Matt., II, 5-6; xxii, 42; Luke, i, 32; John, vii, 41-42; AcL", ii, 30. 
10 



218 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

acles which were sought of him in this name.* Here, 
as in many other circumstances of his life, Jesus con- 
formed to the ideas which were current in his time, 
although they were not precisely his own. He associ- 
ated with his dogma of the " kingdom of God," all that 
warmed the heart and the imagination. Thus have we 
seen him adopt the baptism of John, which, however, 
could have been of no great importance to him. 

A grave difficulty presented itself; his birth at 'Naz- 
areth, which was a matter of public notoriety. We do 
not know whether Jesus attempted to answer this 
objection. Perhaps it was not made in Galilee, 
where the idea that the son of David must be a Beth- 
lehemite, was less common. To the idealistic Galilean, 
moreover, the title of " son of David," was sufficiently 
justified, if he to whom it was given, renewed the 
glory of his race, and brought back again the great 
days of Israel. Did he, by his silence, authorize the 
fictitious genealogies which his partisans Imagined, in 
order to prove his royal descent.f Did he know any- 
thing of the legends invented to fix his birth at Beth- 
lehem, and in particular of the feat by which his Beth- 
lehemite origin was connected wiih the assessment 
made by the imperial legate, Quirinius ?:j: We do not 
know. The inexactitude and the contradictions of 
the genealogies,! induce the belief that they were the 
result of a popular labor, working at different points, 

* Matt., IX, 27; xii, 23; xv, 22; xx, 30-31; Mark, x, 47, 52; Luke, xvm, 38. 

+ Matt., I, i seqq. ; Luke, iii, 23 seqq. J Matt., ii, 1 seqq. ; Luke, ii,l seqq. 

B The two genealogies are altogether discordant, and conform little to the lists 
of the Old Testament, "f he recital of Luke as to the assessment of Quiriniua 
implies an anachronism. See above, p. 6t, note |. It is natural, however, that 
the tradition should have seized upon this circumstance. The assessments im- 
pressed the Jews very strongly, overturned their narrow ideas, and were long 
remembered. Cf. Acts, v, 37. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 219 

and that none of them were sanctioned bj Jesus.* 'Ne- 
ver did he designate himself with his own lips as the 
son of David. His disciples, much less enlightened 
than he, heightened at times what he said of himself; 
oftenest he had no knowledge of these exaggerations. 
We must add that during the three first centuries, 
large portions of Christianity f obstinately denied the 
rojal descent of Jesus, and the authenticity of the gen- 
ealogies. 

His legend was thus the fruit of a great, altogether 
spontaneous conspiracy, and was worked out about 
him while he was yet alive. ISTo great event of history 
has passed without giving rise to a cycle of fables, and 
Jesus could not, had he wished, have silenced these 
popular creations. Perhaps a sagacious eye could 
have recognized, even then, the germ of the stories 
which were to attribute to him a supernatural birth, 
either in consequence of the notion generally received 
in antiquity, that the extraordinary man cannot be 
born of the ordinary relations between the sexes; or 
to fulfil a misunderstood chapter of Isaiah,;]: in which 
a prophecy was seen, that the Messiah should be born 
of a virgin ; or finally to carry out the idea that the 
" Breath of God," already set up in the divine hy- 
postasis, is a principle of fecundity. | Even then, 
perhaps, there circulated concerning his childhood, 
more than one anecdote intended to show in his biog- 
raphy the accomplishment of the Messianic ideal,§ or, 

* Julius Africanus (in Eusebius, H. E.. i, 7) supposes that it was the relatives 
of Jesus, refugees in Batanea, who essayed to recompose the genealogies. 

■f The Ebionim, the " Hebrews," the " Nazarenes," Tatian, Marcion. C£ 
Epiph., Ado. hAjer., xxix, 9; xxx, 3, 14; xlvi, I; Theodoret, Hoeret.fab., i, 20; Is- 
idorus of Pelusium, Epist., i, y71; ad Pansophium. t Matt., i, 22-23. 

li Genesis, I, 2. For an analogous idea among the Egyptians, see Herodotus, 
III, 28; romp. Mela, I, 9; Plutarch, Qucesi. symj)., VIII, i, 3; Delsid., et Osir., 43. 

^ Matt., 1, 15, 23; Is., vn, 14 seqq. 



220 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

to'speak more correctly, of the prophecies which the 
allegorical exegesis of the time applied to the Messiah. 
At other times, there were created for him relations 
from the cradle with celebrated men, John the Baptist, 
Herod the Great, Chaldean astrologers, who, it was 
said, about that time made a journey to Jerusalem,* 
two aged persons, Simeon and Anna, who had left 
memories of lofty sanctity.f A rather loose chronology 
presided over these combinations, which were for the 
most part founded npon real occurrences distorted. if 
But a singular spirit of sweetness and of goodness, a 
profoundly popular sentiment, penetrated all these fa- 
bles, and made them a supplement to the teachings. [ 
After the death of Jesus especially, such stories were 
largely developed ; we may believe, however, that 
they were already in circulation while he was living, 
without encountering anything more than a pious cre- 
dulity and an artless wonder. 

That Jesus had never thought of passing for an in- 
carnation of God, we cannot doubt. Such an idea 
was extremely foreign to the Jewish mind ; there is no 
trace of it in the synoptic gospels ;§ we find it indi- 
cated only in portions of the gospel of John which 
cannot be accepted as an echo of rhe thought of Jesus. 
Sometimes even Jesus seems to take precautions to re- 
pel such a doctrine.T The accusation that he made 
himself God or the equal of God is presented, even in 
the Gospel of John, as a calumny of the Jews.** In 

* Matt, , II, 1 eeqq. t Luke, ii, 25 seqq. 

I X Thus the legend of the Massacre of the Innocents probably relates to some 
Cruelty of Herod with regard to Bethlehem. Comp. Jos. , Ant. , XIV, ix, 4. 

II Matt., I and ii;Luke, i andii; St. Justin, Dial, cum Tryph. , 78, lOQ ; Proteoang. 
of James (apocr.), 18 seqq. 

^ Certain passages, like Ads, ii, ^2, exclude it expressly. 

f Matt., XIX, 17; Mark, x. 18; Luke, xviii, 19, 

** John, V, 18 seqq.; x, a3 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 221 

this last gospel, he declares that he is less than his 
Father.* Besides, he avows that the Father has not 
revealed all things to him.f He believes himself 
more than an ordinary man, but separated from God 
by an infinite distance. He is the son of God ; but all 
men are so or may become so in diverse degrees'.:!: All 
men, every day, ought to call God their father ; all the 
resurrected will be sods of God.|| The divine filiation 
was attributed in the Old Testament to beings for 
whom was made no pretention of equality with God.g 
The word '* son " has, in the Semitic tongues, and in 
the language of the ISTew Testament, the largest range 
of meaning.!" Besides, the idea which Jesus forms of 
man is not this humble idea which a cold deism has 
introduced. In his poetic conception of nature, one 
breath only penetrates the universe ; the breath of 
man is that of God ; God dwells in man and lives by 
man, even as man dwells in God and lives by God."^* 
The transcendant idealism of Jesus never permitted 
him to have a very clear idea of his own personality. 
He is his Father ; his Father is he, He lives in his dis- 
ciples ; he is everywhere with them ;'t'f his disciples are 
one, as he and his Father are one.:j::j: The idea to him 

* John, xrv, 28. t Mark, xiii, 35. 

X Matt., V, 9, 45; Luke, in, 38; vi, 35; xx, 36; John, i, 12-13; x, 34-35, Comp. 
.4c«s, XVII, 28-29; Rom., VIII, 14, 19,21; ix,16; II Cor., vi, 18; Galat., iix, 26, and 
in the Old Testament, Deut., xiv, i, and especially Wisdom, ii, 13, 18. 

6 Luke, XX, 36. 

£ Gen., VI, 2: Job, i, 6: ii, 1; xxviii, 7; Ps., ii, 7; lxxxii, 6; II Sam., vii,14 

1[ The son ot the devil (Matt., xiii, ?%; Acts, xiii, 10) ^ the sons of this world 
(Mark, in, 17; Luke, xvi, 8; xx, 34); the sons of light (Luke, xvi, 8; John, xii, 
36; ; the sons of the resurrection (Luke, xx, 36; the sons of the kingdom (Matt., 
VIII, 12. xiii, 38); the sons of the bridegroom (Matt., ix, 16, Mark, ii, 19; 
Luke, V, 34); the sons of Gehenna (Matt., xxiii, 15); the sons of peace (Luke, x, 
e), etc. Bear in mind that the Jupiter of paganism is irarrip avSpc^v rs dswv TS. 

** Comp. Ads, XVII, 28. ff Matt., xviii, 20. xxviii, 20. 

■|:J: John, X, 80; xvii, 21. See in general the last discourses of John, especially oh. 
XVII, which very well express one phase of the psychological state of Jesus, al- 
though we cannot regard these as genuine historical documents. 



222 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

is everything ; the body, which makes the distinction 
of persons, is nothing. 

The title of " Son of God " or simply of '' Son,"* thus 
became to Jesus a title analogous to *' Son of man," 
and, like it, a synonym of " Messiah," with this differ- 
ence only, that he called himself " Son of man," and 
that he does not seem to have made the same use of 
the expression " Son of God."t The title Son of man 
expressed his character as judge ; that of Son of God 
his participation in the supreme designs and his pow- 
er. This power has no limits. His Father has given 
him all power. He has a right to change even the 
Sabbath.:]: l^one knows the Father except through 
him.|l The Father has transmitted to him the exclu- 
sive right to judge. § ISTature obeys him ; but she 
also obeys whoever believes and prays ; faith can ac- 
complish all things. T" We must remember that no 
idea of the laws of ^Nature existed in his mind, or in 
the minds of his auditors, to mark the limits of the 
possible. The witnesses of his miracles thanked God 
" for having given such power to men."*^ He forgives 
sins ;f t be is superior to David, to Abraham, to Solo- 
mon, and to the prophets.:^:]: We know neither under 
what form nor to what extent these affirmations were 
produced. Jesus cannot be judged by the rule of our 
petty propriety. The admiration of his disciples over- 
whelmed him and carried him away. It is evident 
that the title of Babl)% with which he was at first con 
tent, did not longer suffice; the title of prophet even 

* The passages in support of this are too numerous to be given here. 
f It is on47 in the Gospel of John that Jesus makes use of the expression " Son 
Of God" or " Son" in speaking of himself. % Matt. , xii, 8; Luke, vi, 5, 

H Matt. , XI, 27. \ John, v, 22. \ Matt. , xvii, 18-19; Luke, xvii, 6. 

** Matt., IX, 8. tfMatt., ix, 28eqq.; Mark, ii, 5 seqq.; Luke, v, 20; vii, 47-48 
X^ Matt., XII, 41-42; xxii, 43 seqq.; John, viii, 52 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 223 

or of messenger of God did not now respond to his 
idea. The position which he attributed to himself 
was that of a superhuman being, and he wished to be 
regarded as having a more elevated communion with 
God than other men. But we must retiiark that these 
words ^'superhuman " and '^ supernatural" borrowed 
from our narrow theology, had no meaning in the high 
religious consciousness of Jesus. To him, nature and 
the development of humanity were not limited king- 
doms outside of God, pitiful realities, subjected to the 
laws of a hopeless empiricism. I^othing was super- 
natural to him, for there was no nature. Intoxicated 
with infinite love, he forgot the heavy chain which 
holds the spirit captive ; he overleaped at one bound 
the abyss, insurmountable to the multitude, which the 
mediocrity of the human faculties traces between man 
and God. 

We do not deny that there was in these affirmations of 
Jesus the germ of the doctrine which was afterwards 
to make him a divine hypostasis,* identifying him 
with the "Word, or '' second God,"f or eldest son of 
God,:]: or Metathronic Angel^\ which the Jewish the- 
ology created on another hand. A species of neces- 
sity led this theology, in order to correct the extreme 

* See especially John, xiv seqq. But it is doubtful whether we have here the 
authentic teaching of Jesus. 

+ Philo cited in Eusebius, Prcep. Evang. , VII, 13. 

l Philo De migr. Al/raham, § 1 ; Quod devs immut. , § 6; Deconfus. ling , §§ 14 and 28; 
Deprofugis. § 20 ; i?e Somniis, I, ^ 37 ; De agric. Noe, § 12,- Quis rerum divin. hceres, § 25 
6eqq.;48seqq., etc. 

i MsTa.6^ovog, that is to say, sharing the throne of God; a species of 
divine recorder, keeping the register of merits and of demerits; Bereschith Rdbbay 
V, 6 c; Talm. of Bab. , Sanhedr. , 38 b, Cluigiga, 15 a; Targum of Jonathan, pen. , v, 24. 

^ This theory of the Aoyof contains no Greek elements. The comparisons 
which some have made between it and the Ilonmjer of the Parsees are also with- 
out foundation The Minokhired or " Divine Intelligence" has much analogy with 
theAoyojof the Jews. (See the fragments of the book entitled Minokhired 
in Spiegel. ParsiGrammai,ik, p. 161-162.) But the development which the doc- 
trine of the ifiTiofcAired has received among the Parsees is modern, and may im- 



224 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

rigor of the ancient monotheism, to place near God an 
assistant judge, to whom the Eternal Father was re- 
puted to delegate the government of the universe. 
The belief that certain men are incarnations of divine 
faculties or " powers," was wide-spread ; the Samarit- 
ans had about this time a wonder-worker named Si- 
mon, who was identified with "the great power of 
God."* For nearly two centuries, the speculative 
minds of Judaism had yielded to the propensity to 
make distinct personalities of the divine attributes or 
of certain expressions which related to the divinity. 
Thus the " Breath of God," which is often mentioned 
in the Old Testament, is considered as a separate be- 
ing, the "Holy Spirit." In the same way, the " Wis- 
dom of God," the " Word of God," become persons 
existing by themselves. This was the germ of the 
process which has engendered the Sephiroth of the 
Cabbala, the jEons of Gnosticism, the Christian hy- 
postases, all this dry mythology, consisting of personi- 
fied abstractions, to which monotheism is obliged to 
have recourse, when it would introduce multiplicity 
into the idea of God. 

Jesus appears to have remained a stranger to these 
refinements of theology, which were very soon to fill 
the world with sterile discussions. The metaphysical 
theory of the Word, as we find it in the writings of 
his cotemporary Philo, in the Chaldean Targums, and 
previously in the book of " Wisdom, "f is not percep- 

ply a foreign influence, The •' Divine Intelligence" (Mainyu Khratu) figures in 
the Zend books: but it does not serve there as the basis of a theory; it enters only 
into certain invocations. The comparisons which have been attempted between 
the Alexandrian theory of the Word and certain points of the Egyptian theolo- 
gy are not without value. But nothing indicates that in the centuries which 
preceded the Christian era, Palestinian Judaism had borrowed anything from 
Egypt. * Acts,yiii, 10. 

t rx 1-2; XVI, 12. Comp. vii, 12; viii, 5 seqq. ; ix, £nd in general ix-xi These 
prosopopoeia of personified Wisdom are found in hooka far more ancient. Prov. 
Tin, IX ; Job, xzvin. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 226 

tible either in tlie Logia of Matthew, or in general in 
the synoptics, interpreters so antlientic of the words 
of Jesns. The doctrine of the Word, indeed, had no- 
thing in common with Messianism. The Word of 
Philo and of the Targums is in no wise the Messiah. It 
is John the Evangelist or his school, who afterwards 
sought to prove that Jesus is the Word, and wdio cre- 
ated from this stand-point an entirely new theology, 
very different from that of the kingdom of God.* The 
essential character of the Word is that of creator and 
of providence ; now Jesus never claimed to have cre- 
ated the world, nor to govern it. His portion will be 
to judge it, to renew it. The character of judge of the 
final assizes of humanity, such is the essential attribute 
which Jesus attributes to himself, tbe character which 
all the first Christians gave him.f Till that great day 
he sits at the right of God as his Metathrone^ his prime 
minister a,nd his future avenger.;]: The superhuman 
Christ of the Byzantine apsides, seated as judge of the 
world, in the midst of the apostles, who are analogous 
to himself and superior to the angels who only stand 
and wait, is the exact representation of that conception 
of the " Son of man," the first traits of which we find 
so strongly indicated already in the Book of Daniel. 

At any rate, the rigor of a premeditated scholastic- 
ism belonged in no wise to such a world. The whole 
mass of ideas which we have set forth formed in the 
minds of the disciples a theological system so far from 
fixed, that they make the Son of God, this species of 

* John, 1, 1-14; I John, v, 7; Ren., xix, 13. It wiU be remembered, moreover, 
that, in the Gospel of John, the expression of " Word " does not recur out of 
the prologue, and that the narrator never places it in the mouth of Jesus 

+ Ads, X, 42. 

X Matt., XXVI, 64; Mark, xvi,19, Luke, xxii, 69; Acts,yi\,bb; Kom.,vm,34; 
EphCH.. I, 20; Coloss., iil,l;Heb. i,3,.l»; vm, l;x, 12; XH, 2; 1 Pet.,iii, 22. See 
the passages previously cited in regard to the position, of the Jewish MetaJthronos. 

10* 



226 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

divine reduplication, act merely as man. He is tempt- 
ed ; he is ignorant of many things ; he corrects him- 
self ;* he is dejected, discouraged, he asks his Father 
to spare him trials ; he submits to God like a son.f 
He who is to be the judge of tlie world, knows not the 
day of judgment.:!: He takes precautions for his safe- 
ty.! Shortly after his birth, it is necessary to secrete 
him to avoid mighty men who desired to kill him.§ In 
exorcisms, the devil wrangles with him and does not 
go at first.T^ In his miracles, a painful effort is per- 
ceived, a weariness as if something had gone out of 
him.** All this is simply the work of a messenger of 
God, a man protected and favored of God.f f We must 
ask here neither logic nor consistency. The need that 
Jesus had to yield himself to the faith and enthusiasm 
of his disciples, piled up contradictory notions. To 
the Messianists of the millenarian school, to the exci- 
ted readers of the books of Daniel and Enoch, he was 
the Son of man ; to the Jews of the common faith, to 
the readers of Isaiah and Micah, he w^as the Son of Da- 
vid; to the affiliated he was the Son of God, or sim- 
ply the Son, Others, without being blamed for it by 
the disciples, believed him John the Baptist alive 
again, Elias, or Jeremiah, according to the popular 
belief that the ancient prophets should awaken to pre- 
pare the way of the Messiah. :t::j: 

An absolute conviction, or to speak more correctly, 
enthusiasm, which deprived him even of the possibili- 
ty of doubt, covered all this hardihood. We can but 

* Matt., X, V, compare with xxviii, 19. 

f Matt., XXVI, 39; John, xn, 27. J Mark, xiii, 32. 

I Matt., XII, U-16; xiv, 13; Mark, iii, 6-7; ix, 29-30; John, vii, 1 seqq. 
§ Matt. , n. 20. ^ Matt. , xvii , 20 ; Mark, ix, 25. 

** Luke, 46-46; John, XI, 33, 38. ff Acts, ii, 22. 

XI Matt.,xrv, 2; xvi, 14; xvii, 3 eeqq. ; Mark, ti, 14 15; viii, 28; Luke, ix, 8 
seqq.; 19. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 227 

feebly comprehend, with our cold and timorous na- 
tures, such a manner of being possessed by the idea 
of which he makes himself the apostle. To us, races 
profoundly serious, conviction means sincerity with 
ourselves. But sincerity with ourselves has not much 
meaning among the Eastern nations, who are little 
accustomed to the delicacy of the critical mind. Good 
faith and imposture are words which, in our rigid 
conscience, are opposed like two irreconcilable terms. 
In the East, between the two there are a thousand 
subterfuges, a thousand evasions. The authors of the 
apocryphal books, (of " Daniel " and of "Enoch," for 
example,) exalted as they were, committed for their 
cause, and most certainly without the shadow of a 
scruple, an act which we should call a forgery. Mate- 
rial truth has very little value to tiie Oriental ; he sees 
everything through his ideas, his interests and his pas- 
sions. 

History is impossible, unless we resolutely admit 
that there are many degrees of sincerity. All great 
things are achieved by the people ; now the people are 
led only by yielding to their ideas. The philosopher 
who, knowing this, isolates and intrenches himself in 
his nobility, is greatly to be praised. But he who 
takes humanity with its illusions, and seeks to act up- 
on it and with it, cannot be blamed. Caesar knew 
very well that he was not the son of Yenus ; France 
would not be what she is, had she not believed for a 
thousand years in the sacred ampulla of Rheims. It is 
easy for us, impotent as we are, to call this falsehood, 
and, proud of our timid honesty, to treat with con- 
tempt the heroes who accepted under other conditions 
the battle of life. When we shall have done with our 



228 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

scruples what thej did with their falsehoods, we shall 
have the right to be severe upon them. At least we 
must make a broad distiuction between societies like 
our own, in which everything takes place in the matu- 
rity of reflection, and the simple and credulous socie- 
ties in which the faiths were born which have master- 
ed the centuries. There is no great foundation which 
does not repose upon a legend. The only guilt in such 
a case, is that of humanity which will be deceived. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 229 



CHAPTEE XYI. 



Two means of proof only, miracles and the fulfil- 
ment of the prophecies, could, in the opinion of the 
cotemporaries of Jesus, establish a supernatural mis- 
sion. Jesus, and especially his disciples, employed 
these two methods of demonstration with perfect good 
faith. For a long time Jesus had been convinced that 
the prophets had written only in view of him. He 
found himself in their sacred oracles ; he looked upon 
himself as the mirror in which all the prophetic spirit 
of Israel had read the future. The Christian school, 
perhaps even during the life of its founder, sought to 
prove that Jesus corresponded perfectly to all that the 
prophets had predicted of the Messiah.* In many 
cases the correspondences were altogether exterior, 
and are hardly cognizable to us. It was usually fortu- 
itous or insignificant circumstances in the life of the 
Master that reminded the disciples of certain passages 
of the Psalms and prophets, in which, by reason of 
their constant pre-occupation, they saw references to 
him.f The exegesis of the times thus consisted almost 

* For example. Matt. , i, 22; ii, 5-6, 15, 18; iv, 15. 

t Matt., 1,23: iv, 6, 14; xxvi, 31, 5t, 56; xxvn, 9,35; Mark, xiv, 27; xr, 28; 
John, XII, 14-16; xviii, 9; xix, 19, 24, 28, 36. 



230 LIFE OF JESUS. 

entirely in plays upon words, and in citations made in 
an artificial and arbitrary manner. The synagogue 
had no list officially fixed of the passages which relat- 
ed to the future reign. The Messianic applications 
were fj'ee, and. constituted much rather artifices of 
style than a serious mode of argument. 

As to miracles, they were considered, at that time, 
the indispensible mark of the divine and the sign of 
the prophetic calling. The legends of Elijah and 
Elisha were full of them. It was the received opin- 
ion that the Messiah would perform many.* A few 
miles from the place where Jesus dwelt, in Samaria, 
a magician named Simon created for himself by his 
illusions a character almost divine. f Afterwards, 
when it was desired to found the fame of Apollonius 
of Tyana and to prove that his life had been the visit 
of a God to the earth, it was thought that in order to 
succeed in this, a vast round of miracles nmst be in- 
vented as his work.:}: The Alexandrian philosophers 
themselve, Plolinus and the rest, are reputed to have 
performed them.| Jesus had therefore to choose be- 
tween these two alternatives, either to renounce his 
mission, or to become a wonder-worker. We must re- 
member that all antiqnity, with the exception of the 
great scientific schools of Greece and their Roman 
adepts, accepted miracles ; that Jesus, not only be- 
lieved in them, but had not the least idea of a natural 
order governed by laws. His knowledge on this point 
was in no wise superior to that of his cotemporaries. 
Moreover, one of his most deeply rooted opinions was 

* John, VII, 34; IV Esdras, xiii, 50. '* f -^^ts. vni, 9 seqq. 

X See his biography by Philostratus. 

I See the Lives of the Sophists, by Eunapius; the Life of Plotinus, by Por- 
phyry; that of Proclus, by Marinu6;that of Isidorus, attributed to Damascius. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 231 

that with faith and prayer man has all power over na- 
ture.* The faculty of performing miracles w^as con- 
sidered a licence regularly imparted by God to men,t 
and was not at all surprising. 

Time has changed into something very grievous to 
us that which was the power of the great founder, and 
if ever the worship of Jesus grows feeble in the heart 
of humanity, it will be because of those very acts 
which made men believe Jn him. Criticism experi- 
ences before these historical phenomena no embarrass- 
ment. A thaumaturgist of our days, unless of extreme 
simplicity, as has been the case among certain outcasts 
of Germany, is detestable ; for he performs miracles 
without believing in them ; he is a charlatan. But if 
we take a Francis d'Assisi, the question is altogether 
changed ; the miraculous cycle of the birth of tlie or- 
der of St. Francis, far from shocking us, causes us 
real pleasure. The founders of Christianity lived in a 
state of poetic ignorance at least as complete as St. 
Clare and the ^tres socii. They thought it very natural 
that their master should have interviews with Moses 
and Elias, that he should command the elements, and 
that he should heal the sick. We must remember, 
besides, that every idea loses something of its purity 
when it aspires to realization. We never succeed but 
that the delicacy of the soul experiences some shocks. 
Such is the feebleness of the human mind, that the 
best causes are ordinarily gained only for bad reasons. 
The demonstrations of the primitive expounders of 
Christianity repose upon the poorest arguments. Mo- 
ses, Columbus and Mahomet, triumphed over obsta- 
cles only by taking into consideration each day the 

♦ Matt., XVII, 19; XXI, 21-22; Mark, xi, 23-24. f Matt., ix, 8. 



232 ORIGINS OP CHRISTIANITY. 

weakness of men and by not always giving the true 
reasons of the truth. It is probable that the assem- 
blage about Jesus was more struck by his miracles than 
by bis teachings so deeply divine. We must add that 
undoubtedly popular fame, before and after the death 
of Jesus, enormously exaggerated the number of acts 
of this kind. The types of the evangelical miracles, 
indeed, do not present much variety ; they repeat each 
other and seem traced over a very small number of 
patterns, fitted to the taste of the country. 

It is impossible, among the miraculous stories, the 
wearisome enumeration of which the Gospels contain, 
to distinguish the miracles which have been attributed 
to JesQS by popular opinion from those in which he 
consented to take an active part. It is impossible 
above all to know whether the ungracious circum- 
stances of exertion, groans, and other traits character- 
istic of jugglery,* are really historic or are the fruit 
of the belief of the compilers, much inclined to magic, 
and living, in this respect, in a world analogous to 
that of the "spirits " of our days.f Almost all the 
miracles which Jesus thought he performed appear to 
have been miracles of healing. Medicine was at that 
time in Judea what it still is in the East, that is to say 
in no respect scientific, but absolutely abandoned to 
individual inspiration. Scientific medicine, founded 
five centuries before by Greece, was, in the time of 
Jesus, unknown to the Jews of Palestine. Iri such a 
condition of knowledge, the presence of a superior 
man, treating the sick with gentleness, and giving him 

* Luke, viii, 45-46; John, xi, 33, 38. 

t Ads, II, 2 seqq.; iv, 31; viii, 15 seqq; x, 44 seqq. Por nearly a century, the 
apostles and their disciples thought only of miracles. { See the Acts, the writings of 
St. Paul, the extracts of Papias, in Eusebius, JSTisi. JScd., Ill, 39, etc. Comp- 
aiark, in, 15; xvi. 17-18, 20. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 233 

by some sensible signs the assurance of his recovery, 
is often a decisive remedy. Who dare say that in 
many cases, and apart from injuries of a decided char- 
acter, the coutfiif of an exquisite person is not wortli A 
all the resources of pharmacy ? The pleasure of see- 
ing him heals.* He gives what he can, a smile, a 
hope, and that is not unavailing. 

Jesus had no idea of a rational medical science any 
more than his cotemporaries ; he believed with all the 
world that cures were to be effected by religious rites, 
and such a faith was perfectly logical. From the mo- 
ment that disease is regarded as the punisliment of a 
sin,f or the work of a demon, :j: not the result of physical 
causes, the best physician was the holy man, who pos- 
sessed power in the supernatural realm. Healing was 
considered a moral act ; Jesus, who felt his moral 
force, must have believed himself specially endowed 
for healing. Persuaded that the touch of his garment,! 
the imposition of his hands,§ did good to the sick, he 
would have been unfeeling had he refused to the suf- 
fering an alleviation which it was in his power to ac- 
cord. The cure of the sick was considered one of the 
signs of the kingdom of God, and always associated 
with the emancipation of the poor.T Both v/ere signs 
of the great revolution which was to end in the re- 
dress of all infirmities. 

One of the cures which Jesus oftenest performs, is 
exorcism, or the casting out of devils. A singular 
readiness to believe in demons reigned in all minds. 
It was a universal opinion, not only in Judea, but in 

♦ John, V, 14; ix, 1 seqq., 34. 

! Matt, IX, 32-33; xil, 22; Luke, XIII, 11, 16 
Luke, VIII, 45-46. | Luke, iv, 40. 

Matt., XI, 6; XV, 30-31; Luke, ix, 1-2, 6. 



234 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the whole world, that demons take possession of cer- 
tain persons and make them act contrary to their own 
will. A persian div, named many times in the 
AvQstsi,^ Aesohma, daeva, '' the div of/c(^ncupiscence," 
adopted by the Jews under the name of Asmodeus,f 
became the cause of all hysterical troubles among wo- 
men.:!: Epilepsy, the mental and nervoas diseases! in 
which the patient seems to have lost all self-control, 
infirmities the cause of which is not apparent, like 
deafness and dumbnesB,§ were explained in the same 
manner. The admirable treatise of Hippocrates, " On 
the Sacred Disease," which founded, four centuries and 
a half before Jesus, the true principles of medicine up- 
on that subject, had not banished from the world so 
great an error. It was supposed that there were pro- 
cesses more or less efficacious for driving away demons ; 
the vocation of exorcist was a regular profession like 
that of the physician. T" There is no doubt that Jesus 
had, during his lifetime, the reputation of possessing 
the deepest secrets of that art.** There were then 
many lunatics in Judea, doubtless because of the 
great spiritual exaltation. These lunatics, who were 
permitted to wander about, as is still the case in the 
same regions, lived in the abandoned sepulchral cav^es, 
the common retreat of vagrants. Jesus had great 
effect upon these unfortunates. ft There were told on 

* Vendidad, xi, 26; Tacna, x, 18. 

+ Tobit, III, 8; vi, 14; Talm. of Bab., Gittin, 68 a. 

I Comp. Mark, XVI, 9; Luke, viii, 2; Gospel of the Infancy, 16, 33; Syrian 
Code, published in the Anecdota Synaca of M. Land, i, p. 1^2 

II Jos., 5. J"., VII, VI, 3; Luciaa PAiiopseiwZ. , 16; Philostratus, Life of Apoll., 
Ill, 38; IV, 20; Aretaeus, De causis morb. chron., I. 4. 

6 Matt., IX, a3; xii, 22; Mark, ix, 16, 24. Luke,'xi, 14. 

f Tolit, viii, 2-3; Matt, xii, 27; Mark, ix, 38; Acts, xix, 18; Josephus, Ant., 
VIII, II, 5; Justin, Dial, cum Tryphone, 85; Lucian, Epigr., xxiii (xvii Dindor^. 

** Matt. , XVII, 20; Mark, ix, 24 seqq. 

f\ Matt. , VIII, 28 ; IX, 34; xii, 43 seqq. ; xvii, 14 seqq. , 20; Mark, v, 1 seqq. ; Lake, 
VIII, 27 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 235 

fhe subject of his cures a multitude of strange stories, 
in which all the credulity of the time gave itself full 
scope. But here again we must not exaggerate the 
difficulties. The disorders which thej explained as 
possessions were often very slight. At the present 
day in'Syria, those are regarded as lunatics or pos- 
sessed of a demon, (these two ideas are but one, med- 
jnourh^\ who are only somewhat singular. A gentle 
word often sufficed in this case to drive away the de- 
mon. Such were doubtless the means employed by Je- 
sus. Who knows whether his celebrity as an exorcist 
did not spread about without his knowing it ? Persons 
who reside in the East are sometimes sui'prised to find 
themselves, after a little time, in possession of great 
renown as physician, sorcerer, or discoverer of treas- 
ures, without being able to get any satisfactory account 
of the facts which have given rise to these strange im- 
aginings. 

Many circumstances moreover seem to indicate that 
Jesus was a thaumaturgist only at a late period and 
against his will. Oftentimes he performed his miracles 
not until after solicitation, with a manifest disinclina- 
tion, and while reproaching those who ask them for 
the grossness of their understanding.! A singularity 
apparently inexplicable, is the care he takes to do his 
miracles privately, and the injunction which he gives 
to those whom he heals to tell it to no man.;]: When 
the demons desire to proclaim him son of God, he for- 
bids them to open their mouths; it is in spite of him- 

* This phr^e, DcBmonium habes (Matt., xi, 18; Luke, vii, 33j John, vii, 20; viri, 

48 seqq. ; x, 20 seqq.), should be translated by " Thou art mad," as they say in 

Arabic, Medjnoun ente. The verb 6'aj/JLOvdv has also, in all classic antiquity, the 

sense of " to be a lunatic." 

+ Matt., XII, 39; xvi,4; xvii, 16; Mark, vm, 17 seqq.; ix,,18; Luke, ix,41 

; Matt, vm, 4; ix, 30*31; xil, 16 aeqq. ; Mark, i, 4A; vu, 24 aeqq. ; vili, 26 



236 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

self that tliey confess him.* These traits are especially 
prominent in Mark, who is above all the Evangelist of 
miracles and exorcisms. It seems tliat the disciple 
who furnished the principal materials for that Gospel 
importuned Jesus by his admiration for prodigies, and 
that the master, annoyed hy a reputation which he 
felt to be a burden, often said to him : " Speak 
not of them " Once, this discord culminated in a 
singular explosion,f an outburst of impatience, in which 
we perceive the weariness which these perpetual de- 
mands of feeble minds caused him. One would say, 
at times, that the part of the thaumaturgist is dis- 
agreeable to him, and that he seeks to give as little 
publicity as possible to the marvels wliich grow, as it 
were, under his feet. "When his enemies ask of him a 
miracle, especially a celestial miracle, a meteor, he 
obstinately refuses. :[ We are then permitted to be- 
lieve that his reputation as a miracle-worker was im- 
posed upon him, that he did not resist it very much, 
but that he did nothing to aid it, and that at all events 
he felt the emptiness of public opinion in this regard. 

It would be departing from riglit historic methods 
to listen too much in this to our repugnances, and in 
order to evade the objections whicli might be raised 
against the character of Jesus, to suppress facts which, 
in the eyes of his cotemporai ies, were of the first order. 
Jt would be agreeable to say that these are additions of 
disciples far inferior to their master, who, unable to 
conceive his true grandeur, have sought to elevate 
him by illusions unworthy of him. But the four nar- 

* Mark, i, 24-25, 34; iii, 12; Luke, iv, 41. 

5 Matt., XVII, 16; Mark, ix, 1 8; Luke, ix, 41. 
Matt. , XII, 38 seqq. ; xvi, 1 seqq. ; Mark, viil, 11. 
Josephus, Ant. , X VllI, m, 3. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 237 

rators of tlie life of Jesus are unanimous in vaunting 
bis miracles ; one of tliem, Mark, the interpreter of the 
apostle Peter,* insists so strongly upon this point that, 
if the cliaracter of Christ were traced exclusively ac- 
cording to his Gospel, he would be represented as an 
exorcist in possession of charms of rare efficacy, as a 
very powerful sorcerer, who inspires terror, and of 
whom men are glad to be rid.f "We will admit, there- 
fore, unhesitatingly that acts which would now be 
considered traits of illusion or of hallucination, figured 
largely in the life of Jesus. Must we sacrifice to this 
unpleasant aspect of such a life its sublime aspect? 
Let us beware of it. A mere sorcerer after the man- 
ner of Simon the Magician, could not have brought 
about a moral revolution like that which Jesus accom- 
plished. If the miracle-worker had effaced in Jesus 
the moral and religious reformer, there would have 
sprung from him a school of magic, and not Chris- 
tianity. 

The problem, moreover, is presented in the same 
manner as to all saints and religious founders. Things 
which are to-day diseases, such as epilepsy and visions, 
were once an element of force and greatness. Medi- 
cal science can tell the name of the malady which 
made the fortune of Mahomet.;]: Almost down to our 
day, the men who have done most for the good of their 
kind (the excellent Yincent de Paul himself!) have 
been, whether they wished it or not, thaiimaturgists. 
If we start with this principle, that every historic per- 

* Papias, in Eusebius, Hist, ecd., Ill, 39. 

t Mark, iv, 40; v, 15, 17, 33, 36; VI, 50; x, 32. Of. Matf, viii, 27, 34; ix, 8; xiv, 
27; xvii, 6-7; xxviii, 5, 10; Luke, iv, 36; v, 17; viii, 25, 35, 37; ix, 34. The Apocry- 
phal Gospel called that of Thomas the Israelite carries this character to the 
most shocking absurdity. Compare the Miracles of Infancy, in Thilo, Cod. Apocr. 
N.T.,p.c:K, note. J Hysteria muscularis, of Schcenlein. 



238 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

sonage to whom acts have been attributed, which we in 
the nineteenth century hold to be senseless or charla- 
tanic, has been a lunatic or a charlatan, the canons of 
criticism are violated. The school of Alexandria was 
a noble school, and yet it abandoned itself to the prac- 
tice of an extravagant thaumaturgy. Socrates ana 
Pascal were not exempt from hallucinations. Facts 
are to be explained by causes which are proportioned 
to them. The weaknesses of the human mind engen- 
der only weakness; great things have always great 
causes in the nature of man, although often they are 
produced with a cortege of littlenesses which, to super- 
ficial understandings, obscure their grandeur. 

In a general sensCj it is therefore true to say that 
Jesus was a miracle-worker and an exorcist only in 
spite of himself. Miracles are ordinarily the work of 
the public even more than of him to whom they are 
attributed, Jesus obstinately refused to perform pro- 
digies which the multitude had created for him ; and 
it would have been the greatest miracle had he not 
performed any ; never would the laws of history and 
of popular psychology have suffered more downright 
abrogation. The miracles of Jesus were a violence 
done him by his time, a concession which the necessity 
of the hour wrung from him. So the exorcist and the 
miracle-worker have fallen ; but the religious reformer 
shall live forever. 

Even those Avho did not believe on him were struck 
by these acts, and sought to witness them.* The pa- 
gans and the rude common people experienced a feel- 
ing of fear, and besought him to depart from their re- 

• Matt, xiT, 1 seqq. ; Mark, vi, 14; Luke, ix, 7; xxiii, 8. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 



239 



gion.* Many thought perhaps to use his name for se- 
ditious movements. f But the altogether moral and 
not at all political direction of the character of Jesus 
saved him from these entanglements. His peculiar 
kingdom was in the circle of children which a similar 
childlikeness of imagination and a like foretaste of 
heaven had gathered and held about him. 



* Matt. , VIII, 34j Mark, v, 17; viii, s: 



t John, vx, 14rl6. 



240 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER XYII. 

DEFINITIVE POBM OP THE IDEAS OF JESUS ON THB 
KINGDOM OF GOD. 

We suppose that this last phase of the activity of 
Jesus endured about eighteen months, from his return 
from the pilgrimage to the passover of the year 31, to 
his journey for the feast of the Tabernacles in the year 
32.* During this period, the ideas of Jesus do not 
appear to have been enriched by any new element; 
but all that was in him was developed and produced 
with an ever increasing degree of force and of bold- 
ness. 

The fundamental idea of Jesus was, from the first 
day, the establishment of the kingdom of God. But 
this kingdom of God, as we have already said, Jesus 
seems to have understood in very different senses. At 
times, he would be taken for a democratic chief, de- 
siring simply the reign of the poor and the disinherited. 
At other times, the kingdom of God is the literal ac- 
complishment of the apocalyptic visions of Daniel and 
Enoch. Often, finally, the kingdom of God is the 
kingdom of souls; and the approaching deliverance is 

• John, v,l;vn,2. We follow the system of John, according to whom the 
public life of Jesus lasted three years. The synoptics, on the contrary, group all 
the facts within the compass of a year. 



I 



LIFE OF JESUS. 241 

the deliverance by the spirit. The revolution desired 
by Jesus is then that which really occurred, the estab- 
lishment of a new worship, purer than that of Moses. 
— All these thoughts appear to have existed at some 
time in the mind of Jesus. The first, however, that 
of a temporal revolution, does not appear long to have 
fixed his attention. Jesus never regarded the earth, 
nor the riches of the earth, nor material power as wor- 
thy of his regard. He had no worldly ambition. 
Sometimes, by a natural consequence, his great relig- 
ious importance was on the point of changing into so- 
cial importance. People came to him to ask that he 
would constitute himself a judge and arbiter in mate- 
rial questions. Jesus repelled these propositions 
haughtily, almost as insults."^ Full of his celestial ideal, 
he never emerges from his disdainful poverty. As to 
the two other conceptions of the kingdom of God, Jesus 
appears always to have preserved them both. If be 
had been only an enthusiast, led astray by the apoca- 
lypses upon which the popular imagination fed, he 
would have remained an obscure sectary, inferior to 
those whose ideas he followed. If he had been only a 
puritan, a sort of Channing or " Savoyard Yicar," he 
would not, beyond contradiction, have obtained any 
success. The two parts of his system, or, to speak 
more properly, his two conceptions of the kingdom of 
God, sustained each other, and this reciprocal support 
produced his incomparable success. The first Chris- 
tians were visionaries, living in a circle of ideas which 
we should call dreams ; but at the same time they 
were the heroes of the social war which has ended in 
the enfranchisement of the conscience and the estab- 

• Luke, XII, 13-14. 

n 



242 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

lishment of a religion whence the pure worship, an- 
nounced by the founder, will at length come forth. 

The apocalyptic ideas of Jesus, in their most com- 
.plete form, may be epitomized thus : The end of the 
present order of humanity is at hand. This end will 
be an immense revolution, '^ an anguish," like to the 
pains of child-birth ; a palingenesis or " regeneration" 
according to the word of Jesus himself),* preceded 
by sombre calamities and announced by strange phe- 
nomena.f On that great day, the sign of the Son of 
Man will burst forth in the heavens ; it will be a vision 
terrible and himinous as tliat of Sinai, a great tempest 
rending the sky, a bolt of fire flashing in the twinkling 
of an eye from the East to the West. The Messiah 
will appear in the clouds, clothed in glory and majesty, 
with the sound of trumpets, surrounded by angels. 
His disciples will sit by his eide upon thrones. The 
dead will then arise, and the Messiah will proceed to 
the judgment.^ 

In this judgment, men will be separated into two 
cate.o;ories, according to their works.] The angels 
will execute the sentence. § The chosen will enter in- 
to a delightful dwelling-place which has been prepared 
for them from the beginning of the world ;T" there they 

* Matt., XIX, 28. 

t Matt. , XXIV, 3 seqq. ; Mark, xiii, 4 seqq. ; Luke, xvii, 22 seqq. ; xxi, 7 seqq. 
It should be remarked that the picture of the end of time here attributed to Je- 
sus by the synoptics contains many touches which correspond with the siege of 
Jerusalem. Luke wrote some time alter the siege (xxi, 9, '20, 24). The compila- 
tion of Matthew, on the contrary, carries us back to the time of the siege, or 
very little afterwards. Unquestionably, however, Jesus announced great ter- 
rors as necessarily preceding his second advent. These terrors were an integral 
portion of all the Jewish apocalypses. Enoch, xcix-c, cii, cm (division of Dill- 
man) ; Carm. Sibyll. , III, ^^34 seqq ; 633 seqq. ; IV, 168 seqq. ; V, 511 seqq. In Dan- 
iel also, the reign of the Saints will come only after the desolation shall have 
been complete (vii, 25 seqq.; vni, 23 seqq.; ix, 26-27, xii, 1). 

% Matt., XVI, 27; xix. 2"; xx, '/l; xxiv, 80 seqq.; xxv, 31 seqq.; xxvi,64; Mark, 
xiv, 62; Luke, xxii, 30; I Cor., xv, 52; 1 Thess., iv, 15 seqq. 

I Matt , XIII, 38 seqq. ; xxv, 33. § Matt., Xlil, 39, 41, 49. 

^ Matt., xxv, 34. Comp. John, xrv 2. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 243 

will sit, clothed in light, at a feast presided over by 
Abraham,* the patriarchs and the prophets. This will 
be the smaller number.f The others will go into 
Gehenna. Gehenna was the valley w^est of Jerusa- 
lem. At various periods the worship of fire had been 
practiced in it, and the place had become a sort of 
cloaca. Gehenna is therefore in the mind of Jesus a 
dismal valley, foul and full of fire. Those excluded 
from the kingdom will be burned and gnawed by 
worms in company with Satan and his rebel angels.J 
There, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. || 
The kingdom of God will be like a closed hall, lighted 
up within, in the midst of this world of darkness and 
of torment. § 

This new order of things will be eternal. Paradise 
and Gehenna shall have no end. An impassable abyss 
separates them one from the other.T" The Son of man, 
seated at the right hand of God, will preside over this 
final condition of the world and of humanity.** 

That all this was understood literally by the disci- 
ples and the Master himself at certain moments, stands 
forth, absolutely evidenced in the writings of the 
time. If the first Christian generation has any deep and 
constant faith, it is, that the world is on the point of 
coming to an end,f f and that the grand '^ revelation"J:l: 

* Matt., VIII, 11; XIII, 43; xxvi, 29; Luke, xxiii, 28; xvi, 22; xxii, 30. 

+ Luke, XIII, 23 seqq. 

X Matt., XXV, 41. The idea of the fall of the angels, so largely developed in 
the Book of Enoch, -was universally admitted in the circle of Jesus. Jude, 6 
seqq. ■ II Ep. attributed to Saint Peter, ii, 4, 11; Rev. xii, 9; John, viii, 44. 

II Matt., V, 22; viir, 12; x, 28; xiii,40, 42, 50; xviii, 8;xxiv. 51; XXV, 30; Mark, 
IX, 43, etc. § Matt., VIII, 12; XXII, 13; XXV, 30. Comp. J6s.,5. J^., III,vin, 5. 

\ Luke, XVI, 28. ** Mark, in, 29; Luke, xxii, 69; Acts., vii, 65. 

ft Acts, li, 17; in, 19 seqq.; I Cor., xv, 23-24, 52; I Thess., in, 13; iv, 14 seqq.; t, 
23; II Thess., n, 8;I Tim., vi, 14; II Tim., iv, 1; Tit., n, 13; James, v, 3, 8; Jude, 
IS; II Pet., in entire; Revelations entire, and especially i, 1; ii, 5,16, in, 11: xi, 
14; xxii. 6, 7, 12, 20. Comp. IV Esdras, iv, 26. 

tt Luke, XVII, 30; I Cor., i, 7-8; II Thess.; i, 7; I Pet, i, 7, 13; Rev., i, 1. 



244 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

of Christ is soon to tal?e place. This startling procla- 
mation : " The time is at hand !"* which opens and 
closes the Apocalypse, this appeal incessantly repeated, 
" He that hath ears to hear, let him hear,"f are the 
cries of hope and of rallying throughout the apostolic 
age. A Syriac expression, Maran atha, " Our Lord 
is coming."J became a sort of password which the be- 
lievers exchanged to fortify themselves in their faith 
and their hopes. The Apocalypse, written in the year 
68 of our era,! fixes the term at three years and a 
half § The " Ascension of Isaiah "T adopts a calcula- 
tion very nearly approaching this. 

Jesus never undertook such precision. When inter- 
rogated as to the time of his coming, he always re- 
fused to respond ; once even he declared that the date 
of this great day is known only to the Father, who 
has revealed it neither to the angels nor to the Son.*^ 
He said that the time when the kingdom of God was 
watched for with anxious curiosity was precisely that 
in which it would not come.f f Pie repeated inces- 
santly that it would be a surprise as in the time of 
Noah and of Lot ; that they must be upon their guard 
always ready to go ; that each should watch and have 
his lamp burning as for a marriage procession, which 
comes unexpectedly ;J:|: that the Son of man would 
come as a thief, in an hour when they looked not for 
him: II II that he would appear as the lightning, that 

* Rev., 1,3; xxii, 10, 

t Matt., XI, 15; xiir, 9, 43; Mark, iv, 9, 23; vii, 16; Luke, viii, 8; xir, 35; Kev. ii, 
7, 11, -27, 29; III, 6,13,22; xiii, 9. % I Cor., xvi, 22. 

II Rev. , XVII, 9 seqq. The sixth Emperor, whom the author gives as reigning, 
is Galba. The dead Emperor, who should return is Nero, whose name is given 
in figures (xiii, 18). § Rev., xi, 2, 3;xii,14. Comp. Daniel, vii, 25;xii, 7. 

f Chap. IV, V, 2 and 14. Comp. Cedrenus, p. 68 (Paris, 1647). 

** Matt., XXIV, 36; Mark, xiii, ;j2. 

+t Luke, xvii, 20. Comp. Talm. of Bab., Sanhedrin, 97 a. 

il Matt. , XXIV, m seqq. ; Mark, xni, 32 seqq. • Luke, xii, 35 seqq. ; xvii, 20 seqq. 

mi Luke, XII, 40; II Pet., in, 10. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 245 

ligliteneth from one part of heaven to the other.* But 
his declarations as to tlie proximity of tlie catastrophe 
are unmistakable. f " This generation shall not pass 
away," said he, " till all these things be fulfilled. 
There be some standing here, which shall not taste of 
death till they see the Son of Man coming in his 
kingdom.''^ He blames those who do not believe in 
him because they are not able to read the signs of the 
coming reign : '' When it is evening, ye say, It will be 
fair weather : for the sky is red. And in the morning. 
It will be foul weather to-day : for the sky is red and 
lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face 
of the sky ; but can ye not discern the signs of the 
times ?"[ By an illusion common to all great Refor- 
mers, Jesus imagined the end much nearer than it 
really was ; he did not take into account the slowness 
of the movements of humanity ; he imagined he was 
to realize in one day that which eighteen hundred 
years later was not yet to be achieved. 

These declarations, formal as they were, preoccupied 
the Christian family for almost sixteen hundred years. 
It was accepted that some of the disciples should see 
the day of final revelation before death. John in par- 
ticular was considered as being of this number ;g ma- 
ny believed that he would never die. Perhaps this 
was a later opinion produced towards the close of the 
first century by the advanced age to which John seems 
to have arrived, this age having given occasion for 
the belief that God intended to preserve him indefin- 
itely until the great day, in order to realize the dec- 

« Luke, XVII, 24. 

t Matt., X, 23; xxiv-xxv entire, and especially xxiv, 29, 34; Mark, xni,30' 
Luke, XIII, 35; xxi, 28 seqq 
t Matt., XVI, 28: xxxii, 36, 39; xxiv, 34; Mark, vni, 38; Luke, ix, 27; xxi, 32. 
I Matt. , XVI, 2-4; Luke, xii, 54-53. § John, xxi, 22-23. 



246 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

laration of Jesus. Be this as it may, at his death the 
faith of many was unsettled, and his disciples gave to 
the prediction of Christ a modified meaning.* 

At the same time that Jesus fully accepted the apo- 
calyptical beliefs, as they are found in the Jewish 
apocryphal books, he accepted the dogma which is 
their complement or rather their condition, the resur- 
rection of the dead. That doctrine, as we have alrea- 
dy saidjf was yet somewhat new in Israel ; a multi- 
tude of people did not believe it or did not know it.J 
It was the faith of the Pharisees and of the fervent fol- 
lowers of the Messianic beliefs.] Jesus accepted it 
without reserve, but still in the most idealistic sense. 
Many imagined that in the resurrected world there 
would be eating, drinking, and giving in marriage. 
Jesus admits indeed in his kingdom a new feast, a ta- 
ble and wine,§ but he formally excludes marriage. 
The Sadducees had upon the subject an argument 
gross in appearance, but at bottom sufficiently accord- 
ant with the old theology. It will be remembered that 
according to the ancient sages, man survived death 
only in his children. The Mosaic code had consecrat- 
ed this patriarchal theory by a singular institution, 
the succession of the Levites. The Sadducees drew 
from this subtle inferences against the resurrection. 
Jesus escaped them by formally declaring, that in the 
Mfe eternal, difference of sex would exist no more, and 
that man should be like the angels. If At times he 

* John, XXI, 22-23. Chapter xxi of the fourth Gospel is an addition, as is 
proved by the final clause of the primitive compilation, which is at verse 31 of 
chapter xx. But the addition is almost cotemporaneous with the publication ol 
this Gospel. f See above, p. 89-90. J Mark, ix, 9; Luke, xx, 27 seqq. 

il Dan., XII, 2 seqq.; II Mace, Chap, vii entire; xii, 45-46; xiv, 46; Acts, xxm, 
6, S;. J 03., Ant., XVIII, i, 3; B. J., II, vili, 14; III, viil, 5. 

£ Matt., XXVI, 29; Luke, xxii, SO. 

^ Matt., XXII, 24 seqq.; Luke, xx, 34-38; Ebionite Gospel , called " of the Egyp- 
tians," in Clem, of Alex., Strom., ii, 9, 13; Clem. Rom., Epist, ii, 12. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 247 

seems to promise resurrection only to the righteous,* 
the punishment of the wicked consisting in complete 
death and annihilation.")* Oftenest, however, Jesus 
will have the resurrection applied to the wicked for 
their eternal confusion.if 

N'othing, we see, in all these theories, was absolute- 
ly new. The gospels and the writings of the apostles 
contain but little of apocalyptic doctrine which is not 
found already in " Daniel,"! " Eaoch,"§ and the " Sy- 
billine Oracles"!" of Jewish origin. Jesus accepted 
these ideas, generally known among his cotempora- 
ries. He made them the basic point of his action, or to 
speak more correctly, one of his basic points ; for he 
had too deep an idea of his true work to establish it 
solely upon principles so frail, — so liable to receive 
from events a withering refutation. 

It is evident, indeed, that such a doctrine, taken by 
itself in a literal manner, had no future. The world, 
being obstinately enduring, would destroy it. One 
generation at most was reserved to it. The faith of 
the first Christian generation is explained ; but the 
faith of the second generation is explained no longer. 
After the death of John, or of the last survivor, who- 
ever he may have been, (ff the group that had seen the 
Master, the declaration of the latter was proven an illu- 
sion,** If the doctrine of Jesus bad been only a be- 
lief in the speedy destruction of the world, it would 
certainly to-day be sleeping in oblivion. What then 

* Luke, XIV, 14; xx, 35-36. This is also the opinion of St. Paul; I Cor., xv, 23 
seqq J I Thess. , iv, 12 seqq. See above, p. 90. 

t Comp. IV Esdras, ix, 22. J Matt., xxv, 32 seqq. 

I See especially chapters ii, vi-viii, x-xiii. 

fe Ch. I, XLV-Lii, LXii, xciii, 9 seqq. 

% Book III, 57 seqq. ; 65'2 seqq. ; 7C0 seqq. ; 795 seqq. 

** These pangs of the Christian conscience are artlessly set forth in the second 
Epistle attributed to St. Peter, iii, 8 seqq. 



248 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

has saved it? The grand hreadth of the evangelical 
conceptions which has permitted under the same sym- 
bol doctrines appropriate to very different intellectual 
conditions. The world has not come to an end, as 
Jesus announced, as his disciples believed. But it has 
been renewed, and in one sense as Jesus desired. It is 
because it looked in two directions that his thought has 
been fruitful. His chimera has not had the fate of so 
many others which have crossed the human mind, be- 
cause it concealed a germ of life which, introduced, 
thanks to an envelope of fable, into the womb of hu- 
manitj^, has borne eternal fruits. 

Say not that this is a kindly interpretation imagined 
to free the lienor of our great Master from the cruel 
contradiction given by reality to his dreams. Ko, no. 
This true kingdom of God, this kingdom of the Spirit 
which makes each one a king and priest ; this king- 
dom, which like the grain of mustard seed is become 
a tree which gives sliade to the world, and in the 
branches of which the birds have their nests, Jesus 
comprehended, desired and founded. By the side of 
the false, cold, impossible idea of a pompous advent, 
he conceived the real city of God, the true " palin- 
genesis," the Sermon upon«the Mount, the apotlieosis 
of the weak, the love of the people, the taste for pov- 
erty, the renovation of all that is humble, true and 
simple. This renovation he has effected like an in- 
comparable artist, by touches which will endure for- 
ever. Each of us owes him the best that is in him- 
self. Pardon him his expectation of an empty apoca- 
lypse, of a coming in great triumph upon the clouds 
of heaven. Perhaps this was the error of others rather 
than his own, and if it is true that he shared in the 



LIFE OF JESUS. 249 

illusion of all, what matters it, since his dream ren- 
dered him strong against death, and sustained him in 
a struggle to which without this perhaps he had been 
■unequal ? 

We must therefore give more than one sense to the 
divine city conceived by Jesus. If his whole thought 
had been that the end of time was at hand, and pre- 
paration must be made therefor, he would not have 
surpassed John the Baptist. To renounce a world 
near its end, to detach self little by little from the 
present life, to aspire to the reign which was at hand ; 
such would have been the last word of his preaching. 
The teaching of Jesus had always a much wider scope. 
He undertook to create a new condition of hunianity, 
and not merely to prepare for the end of that 
which existed. Elias or Jeremiah reappearing to 
make men ready for the supreme crises, would not 
have preached as he did. This is so true, that the 
morality claimed for the last days, is found to be the 
eternal morality, that which has saved humanity. Je- 
sus himself, in jnany cases, adopts methods of speak- 
ing which do not enter into the apocalyi)tic theory. 
He often declares that the kingdom of God has alrea- 
dy commenced, that every man carries it in liimself, 
and may, if he be worthy, enjoy it ; that each creates 
this kingdom quietly by the true conversion of the 
heart.* The kingdom of God is then only the good,f 
an order of things better than that which exists, the 
reign of justice, which the faithful, each according to 
his ability, should aid to found ; or again the liberty 
of the soul, something analogous to the Buddhist ^' de- 

* Matt., VI, 10, 33; Mark, xii, 34; Luke, xi, 2; xii, 81; xvii, 20, 21 seqq. 
t See especially Mark, xii, 34. 



250 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

liverance," the fruit of freedom. These truths, which 
to us are purely abstract, were to Jesus living reali- 
ties. All things in his mind are concrete and substan- 
tive. Jesus is the man who has had strongest faith 
in the reality of the ideal. 

In accepting tlie Utopias of his time and of his 
race, Jesus thus made them lofty truths, thanks to 
fruitful misunderstandings. His kingdom of God was 
doubtless the approaching apocalypse, which was to 
be unfolded in the heavens. But still it was, and pro- 
bably above all, the kingdom of the soul created by 
the liberty and the filial feeling which the virtuous 
man experiences upon the bosom of his Father. It 
was pure religion, with no rites, no temple, no priests; 
it was the moral judgment of the world, awarded to 
the conscience of the righteous and to the arms of the 
people. This is what was made to live, this is what 
has lived. When, at the end of a century of vain 
expectation, the materialistic hope of a speedy 
destruction of the world was exhausted, the real king- 
dom of God was made clear. Convenient explanations 
cast a veil upon the material kingdom, which will not 
come. The Revelations of John, the first canonical 
book of the 'New Testament,* being too explicitly in- 
fected with the idea of an immediate catastrophe, is 
degraded to a secondary position, considered unintel- 
ligible, tortured in a thousand ways, and almost re- 
jected. At least, its fulfilment is adjourned to an 
indefinite future. A few poor belated ones who still 
preserved, in the midst of the reactionary epoch, the 
expectations of the first disciples, became heretics 
(Ebionites, Millenarians,) lost in the lower depths of 

* Justin, Dial, cum Tryph. , 81. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 251 

Christianity. Humanity had passed to another king- 
dom of God. The portion of truth contained in the 
idea of Jesus had triumphed over the chimera which 
obscured it. 

Let us not, however, scorn this chimera, wliich was 
the rough rind of the sacred hulb on which we live. 
This fantastic kingdom of heaven, this endless pursuit 
of a city of God, which has always preoccupied 
Christianity in its long career, has been the origin 
of that grand instinct of tlie future which has ani- 
mated all reformers, obstinate disciples of the Apoca- 
lypse, from Joachim of Florus to the Protestant sec- 
taries of our day. This powerless effort to found a 
perfect society has been the source of that extraordin- 
ary intensity which has always made the true Chris- 
tian an athlete in struggling against the present. The 
idea of the "kingdom of God" and the Apocalypse, 
which is the complete image of it, are thus, in one 
sense, the most elevated and poetic expressions of hu- 
man progress. Certainly there were also great errors 
to grow out of it. Hanging, a continual menace over 
humanity, the end of the world, by the periodical ter- 
rors which it caused for centuries, retarded to a great 
extent all profane development. Society being uo 
longer sure of its existence, contracted from this un- 
certainty a sort of tremor, and those habits of base hu- 
mility, v/hich render the middle ages so inferior to an- 
tiquity and to modern times.* A deep change was, 
moreover, wrought in the manner of picturing the 
coming of Christ. The first time that the announce- 
ment of the destruction of the planet was- made to hu- 

* See, for examples, the prologue of Gregory of Tours to his Histoire ecdesias- 
tiqv£. des Pravcs, and the numerous acts of the first half of the middle ages, com- 
mencing with the formula, " At the approach of the night of the world." 



252 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

manitj, like the infant who welcomes death with a 
smile, it experienced a paroxysm of joy such as it had 
never felt before. As it grew older, the world became 
attached to life. The day of grace, so long awaited by 
the pure souls of Galilee, became to these iron ages a 
day of wrath : Dies irce, dies ilia I But, in the heart 
of barbarism even, the idea of the kingdom of God 
was still fruitful. In spite of the feudal church, of 
sects, and of religious orders, holy personages contin- 
ued to protest, in the name of the Gospel, against the 
iniquity of the world, (jn our days even, troubled 
days, in which Jesus has no more atithentic followers 
than those who seem to repudiate him^he dreams of 
the ideal organization of society, which have so close 
analogy with the aspirations of the primitive Christian 
sects, are in one sense only the expansion of the same 
idea, one of the branches of that immense tree in which 
germinates every thought of the future, and of which 
the " kingdom of God" will be the trunk and root for- 
ever. All the social revolutions of humanity will be 
engrafted upon this stock. But infected with a gross 
materialism, aspiring to the impossible — to found uni- 
versal happiness upon political and economic measures, 
the " socialistic" attempts of our time will yet be un- 
fruitful, until they take for their rule the true spirit of 
Jesus, absolute idealism, this principle that in order to 
possess the earth it is necessary to renounce it. 

The phrase " kingdom of God" expresses, on ano- 
ther hand, with rare felicity, the need which the soul 
experiences of a supplementary destiny, a compensa- 
tion for the present life. Those who do not bring 
themselves to conceive man as composed of two sub- 
stances, and who believe the deistical dogma of the 



LIFE OF JESUS. 253 

immortality of the soul in contradiction with physiolo- 
gy, love to rest upon the hope of a final reparation, 
which under some unknown form shall satisfy the crav- 
ings of the human heart. Who knows whether the 
final term of progress, in the millions of ages, will not 
bring back the absolute consciousness of the universe, 
and in that consciousness the awakening of all who_.> 
have lived. A sleep of a million of years is no longer 
than a sleep of an hour. St. Paul, on this hypothesis, 
would still be right in saying : In ictu oculi .'* 
It is certain that moral and virtuous humanity will 
have its reward, that one day the opinion of the noble 
poor man will judge the world, and that on that day 
the ideal form of Jesus will be the confusion of the 
frivolous man who has not believed in virtue, and of 
the selfish man who has not learned to attain to it. 
The favorite expression of Jesus remains, therefore, 
full of eternal beauty. A sort of grand divination 
seems to have held him in a sublime vagueness, sim- 
ultaneously embracing many orders of truths. 

• I Cor., XV, 52. 



254 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTEE XYIIL 



THB INSTITUTIONS OF J E S XT i 



"What strongly proves, however, that Jesus was 
never entirely absorbed in his apocalyptic ideas, is 
that at the very time that he was most preoccupied 
with them, he is laying with wonderful certainty of 
view the foundations of a church destined to endure. 
It is hardly possible to doubt that he himself had cho- 
sf ". among his disciples those who were called by pre- 
eminence the " apostles " or the " twelve," since on 
the morning following his death, we find them forming 
a body, and filling by election the vacancies which 
had been produced among them.* They were the two 
sons of Jonas, the two sons of Zebedee, James, son of 
Cleophas, Philip, Nathaniel bar-Tolmai, Thomas, Levi, 
son of Alpheus or Matthew, Simon the Canaanite, 
Thaddeus or Lebbeus, and Judas of Kerioth.f It is 
probable that the idea of the twelve tribes of Israel 
had some relation to the choice of this number.:]: The 
"twelve," at all events, formed a group of privileged 

* Ads, 1, 15 seqq.; I Cor. , xv, 5; Oal. i, 10. 

f Matt. , X, 2 seqq. ; Mark, iii, 16 seqq. ; Luke, vi, 14 seqq. ; Acts, i, 13; Papias, In 
Ensebius, Hist. eccl. , III, 39. 
t Matt, XIX, 28; Luke, xxii, 30. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 255 

disciples, in which Peter preserved his entirely frater- 
nal pre-eminence,* and to whom Jesns confided tlie 
charge of propagating his work. ISTothing indicatevS 
the sacerdotal college regularly organized ; the lists of 
the " twelve " which have been preserved to us present 
many uncertainties and contradictions ; two or three 
of those who figure in them are not otherwise heard 
of. Two at least, Peter and Philip,f were married, 
and had children. 

■ Jesus evidently imparted secrets to the twelve 
which he prohibited them from communicating to all4 
It seems at times that his plan was to envelope his 
person in some mj^stery, to postpone the great evi- 
dences until after his death, to reveal himself com- 
pletely only to his disciples, confiding to them the 
charge of demonstrating him afterwards to the world.] 
"What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light ; 
and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the 
housetops." This spared him too precise declaratio- ";, 
and created a species of medium between public opin- 
ion and himself. There is no doubt that he reserved 
certain teachings for the apostles, and that he explained 
to them many parables, the meaning of which he left 
indefinite to the multitude. § An enigmatical style 
and a little oddity in the connection of ideas were in 
vogue in the teaching of the doctors, as is seen by the 
sayings of the Pirhe Aboth. Jesus explained to his 
intimates what was strange in his apothegms or his 
apologues, and to them disengaged his teachings from 

* Ads, 1, 15; II, 14; v 2-3; 29; viii, 19; xv, 7; Gal., i, 18. 

f For Peter, see above, p. 156; for Philip, see Papias, Polycrates, and Clement 
of Alexandria, cited by Eusebius. Hist. eccl. , III, 30, 31, 39; V, 24, 

X Matt., XVI, 20; XVII. 9; Mark, via, 30; ix, 8. 

II Matt., X, 26, 27; Mark, iv, 21 seqq.; Luke, viii, 17; xii, 2seqq. ; John, xiv, 22. 

<5 Matt., xiii, 10 seqq.; 34 seqq.; Mark, ir, 10 seqq.; 33 seqq.; Luke,vin,9 
6eqq.; xii,41. 



256 ORIGINS OF CHEISTIANITY. 

the superfluity of comparisons wliicli at times obscured 
them.* Many of these explanations appear to have 
been carefully preserved. f 

During the lifetime of Jesus, the apostles preached, J 
but without ever separating very much from him. 
Their preaching, moreover, was limited to the an- 
nouncement of the coming of the kingdom of God.f 
They went from city to city, receiving hospitality, or 
rather taking it of themselves according to the custom. 
The guest in the East has great authority ; he is supe- 
rior to the master of the house ; the latter has in him 
the fullest confidence. This preaching of the fire-side 
is excellent for the propagation of new doctrines. The 
hidden treasure is communicated ; thus one pays for 
what he receives ; politeness and good relations aiding, 
the household is touched and converted. Take away 
oriental hospitality, and the propagation of Christiani- 
ty would be impossible to explain. Jesus, who held 
strongly to the good old customs, commanded his dis- 
ciples to have no scruple about taking advantage of 
this ancient public right, even thenprobablj^ abolished 
in the great towns where there were inns.§ '* The la- 
borer," said he, ^' is worthy of his hire." Once in- 
stalled in any man's house, they were to remain there, 
eating and drinking what was ofiered them, so long as 
their mission lasted. 

Jesus desired that, according to his example, the 
messengers of tlie good tidings should render their 
preaching lovely by polite and kindly manners. He 

* Matt., XVI, 6 seqq.; Mark, vii, 17-23. 
t Matt., XIII, 18 seqq.; Mark, vii, 14 seqq. 
X Luke, IX, 6. I Luke, x, 11. 

^ The Greek word -Trav^oxsrov has passed into all the Semitic languages of 
the East to designate an inn. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 257 

wished that on entering a liouse they should give the 
selam or wish of joy. Some hesitated, the selam being 
then as now in the East, a sign of religious conimiinion, 
which is not risked with persons of doubtful faith. 
*' Fear nothing," said Jesus ; '' if nobody in the house 
is worthy of your selam, it will turn to you again."* 
Sometimes, indeed, the apostles of the kingdom of 
God were badly received, and came to complain to 
Jesus, who ordinarily sought to calm them. Some, 
persuaded of the omnipotence of the master, were dis- 
pleased at this forbearance. The sons of Zebedee 
wished that he should call fire from heaven upon the 
inhospitable cities.f Jesus received their importuni- 
ties with his delicate irony, and stopped them with 
this: "lam not come to destroy souls, but to save 
them." 

He sought in every way to establish the principle 
that his apostles were himself. :{: It was believed that 
he had communicated to them his marvellous virtues. 
They cast out devils, prophesied, and formed a school 
of renowned exorcists, || although certain cases were 
beyond their power.§ They performed cures also, 
sometimes by the imposition of hands, sometimes by 
anointing with oil,^[ one of the fundamental processes 
of oriental medicine. In short, like the psylli, they 
could handle serpents and drink deadly beverages with 
impunity.** As we depart from Jesus, this theurgy 
becomes more and more offensive. But there is no 
doubt that it was a common practice in the primitive 

* Matt., X, 11 seqq. ; Mark, vi, 10 seqq. ; Luke, x, 5 seqq. Comp. II John, 10-11, 

iLuke, IX, 52 seqq. 
Matt. , X, 40-42; xxv, 35 seqq. ; Mark, ix, 40; Luke, x, 16; John, xiii, 20. 
Matt., VII, 22; X, 1; Mark, in, 15; vi,13; Luke, x, 17. 
^ Matt., xvii, 18-19. % Mark, vi, 13; xvi, 18; James, v, 14. 

** Mark, xvi, 18; Luke, x 19. 



258 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

church, and that it figured as of highest importance in 
the attention of cotemporaries.* Charlatans, as ordi- 
narily happens, took advantage of this movement of 
popular credulity. During the lifetime of Jesus, many 
who were not his disciples, cast out devils in his name. 
The true disciples were very much displeased at this, 
and sought to prevent them. Jesus, who saw in it an 
acknowledgement of his renown, was not very severe 
towards them.f "We must observe, however, that these 
powers had to a certain extent become a profession. 
Carrying to the extreme the logic of the absurd, cer- 
tain persons cast out devils by Beelzebub,:]: the prince 
of devils. It was imagined that this sovereign of in- 
fernal legions must have full power over his subordi- 
nates, and that by working through him, they were 
sure of expelling the intruding spirit.] Some sought 
even to buy of the disciples of Jesus the secret of the 
miraculous powers which had been conferred upon 
them.g 

The germ of a church thenceforth began to appear. 
This fruitful idea of the power of men united {ecclesia) 
seems really an idea of Jesus. Full of his purely 
idealistic doctrine, that what produces the presence 
of souls, is communion through love, he declared that 
whenever a few should assemble in his name, he 
would be there in the midst of them. He confides to 
the church the right to bind or to loose (that is to say 
to render certain things lawful or unlawful), to remit 
sins, to reprimand, to warn with authority, to pray 
with the certainty of being heard. T It is possible that 

* Mark, xvi, 20. f Mark, ix, 37-38; Luke, ix, 49-50. 

i Ancient god of the Philistines, transformed by the Jews into a demon. 
Matt., xii, 24 seqq. ^ Acts, viii, 18 seqq. * 

Matt., xvin, 17 seqq.; John, xx, 23. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 259 

many of these sayings have been attributed to the 
master, in order to give a basis to the collective au- 
thority by which it was afterwards sought to replace 
his own. At any rate, it was not until after his death 
that individual churches were constituted by them, 
and yet this first constitution was made exactly upon 
the model of the synagogues. Many persons who had 
loved Jesus very much and founded great hopes upon 
him, like Joseph of Arimathea, Lazarus, Mary Magda- 
lene and Nicodemus, did not, it seems, enter these 
churches, and remained content with the tender or res- 
pectful remembrance which they had preserved of him. 
Moreover, there is no trace, in the teaching of Je- 
sus, of an applied morality or a canonical law, be it 
ever so ill-defined. Only once, in regard to marriage, 
he defines his position with clearness and defends di- 
vorce.* "No more theology, no symbolism. ISTothing 
but a few ideas upon the Father, the Son, and the 
Spirit,f whence will afterwards be drawn the Trinity 
and the Incarnation, but which were still in the state 
of indeterminate images. The last books of the Jew- 
ish canon already recognized the Holy Spirit, a spe- 
cies of divine hypostasis, sometimes identified with 
Wisdom or the Word.:]: Jesus insisted upon this 
point,! and announced to his disciples a baptism by 
fire and the Holy Ghost,§ far preferable to that of 
John, a baptism which they believed that they re- 
ceived upon a certain day, after the death of Jesus, un- 
der the form of a mighty wind and of tongues of fire.^f 

• Matt. , XIX, 3 seqq. 

f Matt, XVIII. 19. Comp. Matt., iii, 16-17; John, xr, 26. 
i Sap., I, 7; VII, 7; ix, 17; xii, 1; Eccl., i, 9; xv, 5; xxiv, 27; xxxix; 8; Judith. 
XVI, 17. 
II Matt., X, 20; Luke, xii, 42; xxiv, 49; John, xiv, 26; xv, 26. 
Matt., Ill, 11; Mark, i, 8; Luke, 111.I6; John, i,26; iii, 5; Acts, 1,5,8; x 47. 
Acts, u, 1-1; XI, 15; xix, 6. Cf. John, vii, 39. 



260 OEIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

The Holy Spirit thus sent by the Father will teach 
them every truth, and bear witness to those which Je- 
sus himself has promulgated.^ Jesus, to designate 
this Spirit, made use of the word Peraklit which the 
Syro-Chaldaic had borrowed from the Greek ('7ra|axX'>]T0ff), 
and which appears to have had in his mind the mean- 
ing of advocate,f comforter,:j: and sometimes that of 
interpreter of celestial truths, of a teacher charged 
with revealing to men mysteries yet concealed. | He 
himself is regarded by his disciples as a perahlit^% 
and the Spirit which was to cpme after his death was 
purely to replace him. This was an application of the 
process which Jewish theology and Christian theology 
were to pursue for centuries, and which was to pro- 
duce a whole series of divine intercessors, the Meta- 
throne^ the Synadelphos or Sandalphon^ and all the 
personifications of the Cabbala. In Judaism, how- 
ever, these creations were to rest upon individual and 
free speculations, while in Christianity, from the fourth 
century, they were to form the essence of the univer- 
sal orthodoxy and dogma. 

It is useless to remark how entirely foreign was the 
idea of a religions book, containing a code and arti- 
cles of faith, to the thought of Jesus. He not only 
did not write, but it was contrary to the spirit of the 
rising sect to produce sacred books. They believed 
themselves upon the eve of the grand final catastro- 
phe. The Messiah came to put the seal upon the Law 
and the prophets, not to promulgate new texts. Thus, 

• John, XV, 26; xvi, 13. 

t To peraklit they oppose Katigor {xa,r7)'yo^og) " the accuser." 

iJohn, XIV. 16; I John, ii, 1. 
John, XIV, 26; xv, 26; xvi, 7 seqq. Comp. Philo, De Mwndi opt^cio,^ 6. 
^ John, XIV, 16. Comp. the epistle previously cited, I. c. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 261 

with the exception of the Apocalypse, which may 
he called the only revealed book of infant Christian- 
ity, all the other writings of the apostolic age are inci- 
dental productions, having no pretension whatever to 
furnish a complete system of doctrine. The Gospels 
had at first an altogether private character, and an 
authority far inferior to that of tradition.* 

iN'evertheless, had not the sect some sacrament, some 
rite, some rallying sign ? It had one, which all tradi- 
tions carry back to Jesus. One of the favorite ideas 
of the master is that he was the new bread, a bread 
superior to manna and upon which humanity was to 
live. This idea, the germ of the Eucharist, sometimes 
assumed singularly concrete forms in his teachings. 
Once especially he allowed himself, in the synagogue 
of Capernaum, to take a bold step, which cost him 
many of his disciples. " Yerily, verily, I say unto 
you, not Moses but my Father has given you the bread 
of heaven. "f And he added : " I am the bread of 
life ; he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he 
that believeth on me shall never thirst.":!: This speech 
excited loud murmurs. '' What means he, said they, 
by these words : I am the bread of life ? Is not this 
Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we 
know? how is it then that he saith, I come down from 
heaven?" But Jesus continued still more forcibly: 
" I ani the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna 
in the wilderness and are dead ; this is the bread 
which cometh down from heaven, that a man may 
eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread ; if any 

* Papias, in Eusebius, Hist, eccl., Ill, 39. 
+ John, VI, 32 8eqq. 

t We find an analogous expression, producing a like misunderstanaing, in 
John, IV, 10 seqq. 



262 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

man eat of this bread, lie shall live forever ; and the 
bread which I will give is mj flesh, which I will give 
for the life of the world."* The scandal was now at 
its hio'ht : " How can this man p-ive iis his flesh to 
eat?" Jesus rising still higher replies: " Yerilj, verily 
I say unto you. Except ye eat the flesh of the Son 6t 
man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. 
Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath 
eternal life ; and I will raise hira up at the last day. 
For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink 
indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my 
blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living 
Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father : so he 
that eateth me, even he shall live by me. Tliis is that 
bread which came down from heaven : not as your fa- 
thers did eat manna, and are dead : he that eateth of 
this bread shall live forever." Such persistency in 
paradox shocked many disciples who ceased to follow 
him. Jesus did not retract ; he merely added : " It is 
the spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth no- 
thing; the words that I speak unto you are spirit and 
life." The twelve remained faithful, despite this 
strange preaching. It was to Cephas in particular an 
occasion for showing absolute devotion and proclaim- 
ing again : " Thou art the Christ, the son of God." 

It is probable that thenceforward, in the ordinary 
meals of the sect, some usage was established in con- 
sonance with the discourse so ill-received by the peo- 
ple of Capernaum. But the apostolic traditions on 
this subject are very inconsistent and probably de- 
signedly incomplete. The synoptic gospels indicate 

* AU these discourses bear too strongly the mark of Johns peculiar style, for 
ys to suppose them exact. The anecdote related in the sixth chapter of the fourth 
Gospel cannot, nevertheless, be devoid of historical reality. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 268 

an exclusively sacramental act serving as the basis of 
a mysterious rite, and they place its occurrence at the 
last Supper. John, who has particularly preserved to 
us the incident of the synagogue of Capernaum, 
speaks of no such act, although he recounts the last 
Supper very much at length. Moreover, we see Je- 
sus recognized at the breaking of bread,* as if this act 
were to those who followed him, that most character- 
istic of his person. When he was dead, he appeared 
to the pious recollections of his disciples as presiding 
over a mystic banquet, holding the bread, blessing it, 
and breaking it and presenting it to the guests.f It 
is probable that this was one of his habits, and that at 
such moments he was peculiarly tender and lovely. A 
material circumstance, the presence of fish upon the ta- 
ble (a striking indication which proves that the rite took 
its origin upon the shore of Lake Tiberias;}:), was itself 
almost sacramental, and became a necessary part of 
the images which were formed of the sacred festivaLf 

Meals had become in the infant community the 
most charming occasions. At such times they met 
one another ; the master spoke to each, and entered in- 
to a conversation full of cheer and charm. Jesus 
loved these hours and took pleasure in seeing his spir- 
itual family thus grouped around him.§ Participation 
in the same bread was considered a sort of commun- 

* Luke, XXIV, 30, 35. f Luke, I. c. John, xxi, 13. 

X Comp. Matt., VII, 10; xrr, 17 seqq.; xv, 34 seqq.; Mark, vi, 38 seqq., Luke, 
ix,13seqq. ; xi,ll; xxiv,42; John, vi, 9 seqq.; xxT,9seqq. The basin of Lake 
Tiberias is the only place in Palestine where fish form any considerable part of 
the food of the inhabitants. 

J John, :£xi, 13; Luke, xxrv, 42-43. Compare the oldest representations of the 
Supper copied or restored by M. de Rossi in his dissertation upon the IX0T2 
(Spicilcgium Solesmense de dom Pitra, t. Ill, p. 568 seqq. ) The meaning of the an. 
agram which constitutes the word IX0T2 was probably combined with a 
more ancient tradition in regard to the part acted by fish in the evangelical re- 
pasta. § Luke, XXII, 15. 



264 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

ion, a reciprocal bond. The master used extremely 
energetic terms in this respect, which were at a later 
day understood with unbridled literalness. Jesus is 
■/ at once very idealistic in his conceptions, and very 
' materialistic in his expressions. "Wishing to convey 
this thought that the believer lives only through him, 
that altogether (body, blood and soul) he was the life 
of the true believer, he said to his disciples : " I am 
your sustenance," a phrase which, turned into the fig- 
urative style, became : " My flesh is your bi-ead, my 
blood is your drink." Then his habitual modes of 
speech, always strongly material, carried him still far- 
ther. At table, pointing to the provisions, he said : 
<^ Behold me ;" holding the bread : " This is my body," 
holding the wine : " This is my blood ;" all methods of 
speech which were equivalent to : "I am your sus- 
tenance." 

This mysterious rite obtained great importance 
during the lifetime of Jesus. It was probably estab- 
lished some time before the last journey to Jerusalem, 
and was the result of general teaching, rather than of 
any determinate act. After the death of Jesus it be- 
came the grand symbol of the Christian communion,* 
and it was to the most solemn moment of the life of the 
Savior that its establishment was referred. They 
wished to see in the consecration of the bread and 
wine a farewell memorial which Jesus, at the moment 
of departing this life, had left to his disciples.f Jesus 
himself was found again in this sacrament. The alto- 
gether spiritual idea of the presence of souls, one of 
those most familiar to the Master, which caused him 
to say, for example, that he was in person in the midst 

* Adf, 11, 42, 46. f I Cor., xi, 20 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 265 

of his disciples* when they were assembled in his name, 
rendered this easily admissible. Jesus, as we have al- 
ready observedjf never had any well defined idea of 
what constitutes individuality. At the height of ex- 
altation to which he had arrived, the idea dominated 
all else to such a degree, that the body went for no- 
thing. People are one when they love each other, 
when they live one for another ; had not he and his 
disciples been one?:j: His disciples adopted the same 
language. Those who, for j-ears, had lived by him, 
saw him always holding the bread, then the cup, " in 
his sacred and venerable hands,"] and offering himself 
to them. It was he whom they ate and whom they 
drank ; he became the true Passover, the ancient one 
having been abrogated by his blood. It is impossibl(3 
to translate into our essentially determinate idiom, i;' 
which the rigorous distinction of the literal from tL 
metaphorical sense must always be preserved, manneih 
of style, the essential characteristic of which is to give 
to metaphor, or rather to the idea, complete reality. 

* Matt. , xvni, 20. f See above, p. 221. J John, xii, entire. 

II Canons of the Greek Masses and of the Latin Mass (very old). 

13 



266 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTEK XIX. 

INCREASING PROGRESSION OF ENTHUSIASM AND 
EXALT ATION. 

It is clear that such a religious society, founded 
solely upon the expectation of the kingdom of God, 
must be in itself very incomplete. The first Christian 
generation lived entirely upon expectations and 
dreams. On the eve of seeing the world come to an 
end, they thought useless all things which serve only 
to continue the world. Property was forbidden.* 
Everything which attaches man to earth, everything 
which turns him aside from heaven was to be shunned. 
Although many disciples were married, there was no 
marrying, it seems, after entrance into the sect.f 
Celibacy was decidedly preferred ; even in marriage, 
continence was commended. :j: At one time, the mas- 
ter seems to approve those who should mutilate them- 
selves for the sake of the kingdom of God.|| He was 
in this consistent with his principle : " If thy hand or 
thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from 
thee : it is better for thee to enter into life halt or 
maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to 
be cast into everlasting fire. And if thine eye offend 

* Luke, xrv, 33; Ads, rv, 32 seqq.; v, J-ll. 

i Matt., XIX, 10 seqq.; Luke, xviii, 29 seqq. 
This is the constant doctrine of Paul. Comp. Eev. , xiv, 4. 
Matt., XIX, 12. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 267 

thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee : it is better 
for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than 
having two eyes to be cast into hell-fire."* The cessa- 
tion of generation was often considered the sign and 
the condition of the kingdom of God.f 

Never, we see, had this primitive church formed a 
durable society, without the great variety of germs 
implanted by Jesus in his teaching. It will require 
more than a century for the true Christian church, 
that which has converted the world, to disengage it- 
self from this little sect of " latter day saints " and to 
become a frame applicable to all human society. The 
same thing, moreover, took place in Buddhism, which 
was at first founded only for monks. The same thing 
would have happened in the order of St. Francis, if 
that order had succeeded in its claim to become the 
rule of all human society. Born as Utopias, succeed- 
ing through their very exaggeration, the great founda- 
tions of which we speak shall fill the world only upon 
condition of being profoundly modified, and of laying 
aside their excesses. Jesus did not survive this first 
period altogether monastic, in which men believe that 
they can with impunity attempt the impossible. He 
made no concession to necessity. He preached boldly 
war against nature, total rupture with kin. " Yerily 
I say unto you, said he, whosoever shall leave house, 
or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the 
kingdom of God's sake, shall receive an hundred fold 
more in this world, and in the world to come life ever- 
lasting.":]: 

* Matt., xviii, 8-9. Cf. Tal. of Bab., Niddah, 13 6. 

■f Matt, xxii,. 30; Mark, XII, 25; Luke, xx, 35; Ebionite Gospel, called "of 
the Egyptians" in Clem, of Alex.., Slrom., Ill, 9, 13 and Clem. Bom., Epist. 11,12. 
X Luke, XVIII, 29-30. 



268 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

The instructions which Jesus is said to have given 
to his disciples breathe the same exaltation.* He, so 
yielding to those who were without, he who is content 
at times with partial conversions,f shows towards his 
own disciples extreme rigor. He would have no com- 
promise. It might be called an '' Order " constituted 
by the most austere rales. Faithful to his idea that 
the cares of life trouble and debase man, Jesus de- 
mands of his associates an entire detachment from the 
world, an absolute devotion to his work. Thej were 
to carry with them neither money, nor provisions for 
the journey, not even a scrip, nor a change of raiment. 
They were to practice absolute poverty, to live upon 
alms and hospitality. '' Freely, ye have received, 
freely give,":]: said he in his beautiful language. Ar- 
rested, dragged before the judges, let them prepare no 
defense ; the celestial advocate, the Peraklit^ will in- 
spire what they should say. The Father will send 
them from on high his Spirit, which shall become the 
prime mover of all their actions, the director of their 
thoughts, their guide through the world.] Driven 
out of a city, let them shake off upon it the dust from 
their feet, warning the inhabitants at the same time, 
in order that they may not plead ignorance, of the 
proximity of the kingdom of God. "Before you shall 
have gone over the cities of Israel, added he, the Son 
of man shall appear." 

A strange ardor animates all these discourses, which 
may be in part the creation of the enthusiasm of the 

* Matt., X, entire; xxiv,9; Mark,Ti, 8 seqq.; ix, 40; xiii, 9-13; Luke, ix, 3 
eeqq. ; x, 1 seqq. ; xii, 4 seqq.; xxi, 17; John, xv, 18 seqq., xvii, 14. 

iMark, ix, 38 seqq. 
Matt., X, 8. Oomp Midrasli lalkout, I>cMteron. , sect. 824. 
Matt., X, 20; John, xiv, 16 seqq., 26; xv, 26; xvi, 7, 13. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 269 

disciples,* but which even in this case comes indirect- 
ly from Jesiis, since the enthusiasm itself was his 
work. Jesus announces to those who choose to follow 
him great persecutions and the hatred of all men. He 
sends them as lambs into the midst of wolves. Tliey 
will be beaten in the synagogues and dragged to pris- 
D. The brother shall be delivered up by his brother 
and tlie son by his father. When they are persecuted 
in one country let them flee to anotlier. " The disci- 
ple, said he, is not above his master, nor the servant 
above his lord. Fear not them which kill the body, 
but are not able to kill the soul. Are not two spar- 
rows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall 
to the ground without your Father. But the very hairs 
of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, 
ye are of more value than many sparrows.^f *' Who- 
soever, said he again, shall confess me before men, 
him will I confess also before my Father ; but whoso- 
ever shall be ashamed of me before men, him will I 
deny before the angels, when I come in the glory of 
my Father, which is in heaven. "J 

In these crises of rigor he went to the extent of sup- 
pressing the flesh. His demands lost all bounds. De- 
spising the wholesome limits of human nature, he asks 
that men should exist only for him, that they should love 
him alone. "If any man come to me,- and hate not 
his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and 
brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he 
cannot be my disciple."! •' Whosoever forsaketh not 

* The idea expressed in Matt. ,x, 38; xvr, 24; Mark, viii, 34; Luke, xiv, 27, 
could have been conceived only after the death of Jesus. 

i Matt., X, 24-31; Luke, xii, 4-7- 
Matt., X, 32-33; Mark, viii, 38; Luke, ix, 26; xii, 8-9. 
Luke, XIV, 26. Luke's exaggerated style must be taken into account here. 



270 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple."* Some- 
thing more than human, something strange was then 
mingled with his words ; it was like a fire devouring 
life at its root, and reducing everything to a frightful 
desert. The sad and bitter sentiment of disgust for 
the world, of utter abnegation, which characterizes 
Christian perfection, had for its founder, not the deli- 
cate and joyous moralist of the earlier days, but the 
sombre giant whom a sublime presentiment, as it 
were, was casting farther and farther forth from hu- 
manity. One would say that, in these moments of 
hostility to the most natural necessities of the heart, 
he had forgotten the pleasures of living, of loving, of 
seeing, and of feeling. Overpassing all bounds, he 
dared to say : " If any man will be ray disciple, let 
him deny himself and follow me ! He that loveth fa- 
ther or mother more than me is not worthy of me ; and 
he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not 
worthy of me. Whosoever will save his life shall lose 
it ; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall 
gain it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain 
the whole world, and lose his own soul?"f Two anec- 
dotes, of the style which need not be accepted as histo- 
ric, but which attempt to give a trait of character by 
exaggerating it, paint clearly this defiance thrown 
down to nature. He says to a man : " Follow me !" 
" Lord," replies the man, " suffer me first to go and 
bury my father." Jesus responds : " Let the dead 
bury their dead : but go thou and preach the king- 
dom of God." Another says to him : '' Lord, I will 
follow thee ; but let me first go and put in order the 

* Luke, xrv, 33. 

t Matt., X, 37-39; xvi, 24-25; Luke, ix, 23-25; xiv, 26 27; xvii, 33; John, xil, 25. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 271 

affairs of my house." Jesus replies : "Ko man Laving 
put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for 
the kingdom of God."* An extraordinary confidence. 
and at times accents of wonderful sweetness, overture - 
ing all our ideas, make these exaggerations acceplr, - 
ble. "Come unto me, cried he, all ye that are wea- 
ry and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take 
my yoke upon you ; learn of me that I am weak and 
lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls ; 
for my yoke is easy and my burden is light."f 

Great danger resulted to the future from this exalted 
morality, expressed in a language of hyperbole and 
with a terrible energy. By virtue of detaching man 
from earth, life was shattered. The Christian will be 
praised for being a bad son and a bad patriot, if it is 
for Christ that he resists his father and combats his coun- 
try. The antique city, the republic, mother of all, the 
State, the common law of all, are arrayed in hostility 
to the kingdom of God. A fatal germ of theocracy is 
introduced into the world. 

Another consequence is dimly seen henceforth. 
Transported into a calm condition and into the midst 
of a society confident of its own duration, this moral- 
ity, made for a critical moment, would seem impossi- 
ble. The Gospel was thus destined to become to Chris- 
tians a Utopia, which very few would trouble them- 
selves to realize. These awful maxims were, for the 
mass, to sleep in a deep oblivion, aided by the clergy 
themselves ; the gospel man will be a dangerous man. 
Of all human beings, the most selfish, the most arro- 
gant, the most severe, the most attached to earth, a 
Louis XIY, for example, was to find priests to persuade 

* Matt., VIII, 21-22; Luke, ix, 69-62. f Matt., xi, 28-30. 



272 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

him, in spite of the Gospel, that he was a Christian. 
But always also Saints should be found who should ap- 
prehend literally the sublime paradoxes of Jesus. 
Perfection being placed beyond the ordinary condi- 
tions of society, the complete evangelical life being 
possible only outside of the world, the foundation of 
asceticism and of the monastic state was laid. Chris- 
tian societies have two codes of morality, one half-he- 
roic for the common man, the other exalted to excess 
for the perfect man; and the perfect man will be the 
monk subjected to rules which claim to realize the 
Gospel ideal. It is certain that this ideal, were it only 
for the obligation of celibacy and poverty, could not 
be a common law. The monk is thus, in one sense, the 
only true Christian. Common sense revolts at such 
excesses ; according to it, the impossible is the sign of 
weakness and of error. But common sense is a bad 
judge when great things are to be dealt with. To ob- 
tain anything of humanity, we must ask more. The 
immense moral progress due to the Gospel comes of 
these exaggerations. It is by reason of this that it has 
been, like stoicism, but with infinitely broader scope, 
a living argument of the divine forces which are in 
man, a monument erected to the power of the will. 

We can easily imagine that for Jesus, at the pe- 
riod to which we have now arrived, everything other 
than the kingdom of God had absolutely disappeared. 
He was, if we may so speak, totally beyond nature; 
family, friendship, country, had no longer any 
meaning to him. Doubtless, he had thenceforth o^ 
fered his life a sacrifice. At times, we are tempted to 
believe that, seeing in his own death the means of 
founding his kingdom, he conceived the deliberate 



LIFE OF JESUS. 273 

purpose of causing himself to be killed.* At other 
times (although this idea was not established as a dog- 
ma until somewhat later), death presents itself to him 
as a sacrifice, which will appease his Father and save 
men.f A singular relish for persecution and torment;]: 
seized him. His blood appeared to him like the water 
of a second baptism, in which he must be bathed^ and 
he seemed possessed by a singular haste to go forward 
to this baptism which alone could quench his thirst.] 

The grandeur of his viewr of the future was at times 
surprising. He did not conceal from himself the ter- 
rible storm which he was exciting in the world. " Sup- 
pose ye," said he, with boldness and beauty, that "I 
am come to bring peace on earth ; I tell you, Kay ; I 
am come to send the sword. In a house of five three 
shall be against two and two against three. I am come 
to set a man at variance against his father, and the 
daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law 
against her mother-in law. Henceforth a man's foes 
shall be they of his own household. ''§ " I am come to 
send fire on the earth ; the better if it be already 
kindled?"!" "They shall put you out of the syna- 
gogues," said he also ; *' yea, the time cometh that 
whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God 
service."** "If the world hate you, ye know that it 
hated me before you. Remember the word that I said 
unto you. The servant is not greater than his lord. If 
they have persecuted me, they will also persecute 

you."tt 

Carried away by this terrible tide of enthusiasm, 

* Matt. , XVI, 21-23; xvii, 12, 21-22. f Mark, x, 45. 

t Luke, VI 22 8eqq- || Luke,xii, 50. 

I Matt., X, 34-36; Luke, xii, 51-63. Compare Micah, vii, 6-6. 

% Luke, in, 49. See the Greek text. ** John, xvi, 2. ff John, xv, 18-20. 

12* 



X 



274 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

commanded by the necessities of a preaching more 
and more exalted, Jesus was no longer free ; he be- 
longed to his mission and in one sense to humanity. 
A.t times one would have said that his reason was dis- 
turbed. He had sufferings and agitations within.* 
The grand vision of the kingdom of God, flashing 
ceaselessly before his eyes, dizzied him. His disciples 
at certain moments believed him mad.f His enemies 
declared him possessed.:]: His temperament, which 
was excessively ardent, bore him every instant beyond 
the limits of human nature. His work not being a 
work of reason, and mocking all the classifications of 
the human mind, what he demanded most imperiously, 
was " faith."! This word was that which was often- 
est repeated in the little coenaculum. It is the word 
of all popular movements. It is clear that none of 
these movements would take place, if it were neces- 
sary that he who sets them on foot should gain over 
his disciples successively by good proofs logically de- 
duced. Heflection leads only to doubt, and if the au- 
thors of the French Kevolution, for example, had felt 
bound to be previously convinced by meditation for a 
suflBcient length of time, all would have arrived at old 
age without doing anything. Jesus, in like manner, 
aimed less at logical conviction than at enthusiasm. 
Pressing, imperative, he endured no opposition ; yoa 
must be converted ; he is waiting. His natural gen- 
tleness seemed to have abandoned him ; he was some- 
times rude and uncouth. § His disciples at times 
ceased to comprehend him, and experienced before 

« John, XII, 27. t Mark, iii, 21 seqq. 

t Mark, iii, 22; John, yii, 20; via, 48 seqq. ; x, 20 seqq. 
I Matt., viii, 10; IX, 2, 22, 28-29; xvii, 19; John, vi, 29 etc. 
^ Matt., XVII, 16; Mark, iii, 5; ix, 18; Luke, via, 46; ix, 41. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 275 

him a feeling of fear.* Sometimes his intolerance of 
all opposition, led him to acts inexplicable and appa- 
rently absurd. f 

Not that his virtue gave way ; but his struggle 
against the material in the name of the ideal became in- 
supportable. He was wounded by and shrank from 
contact with the earth. Obstacles irritated him. His 
notion of the Son of God troubled him and grew ex- 
aggerated. The fatal law which condemns the idea to 
sink as soon as it seeks to convert men, began to ap- 
ply to him. Contact with men reduced him towards 
their level. The tone which he had assumed could not 
be sustained longer than a few months ; it was time 
that death should come to release him from a condition 
strained to excess, to deliver him from the impossibil- 
ities of a way without exit, and, while rescuing him 
from an ordeal too much prolonged, to introduce him 
straightway sinless into his heavenly serenity. 

* It is especially in Mark that this trait is perceptible; iv, 40; v, 15; ix, 31; x, Si 
t Mark, xi. 12-14, 20 seqq. 



276 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER XX. 



OPPOSITION TO JESUS 



Dqking the first period of his career, it does not 
seem that Jesus had met with any serious opposition. 
His preaching, owing to the extreme liberty which 
was enjoyed in Galilee and to the number of teachers 
who arose on all sides, had no renown beyond a rather 
limited circle of persons. But after Jesus had entered 
upon a brilliant career of prodigies and public successes, 
the mutterings of the storm began to be heard. More 
than once he was forced to hide or to flee.* Antlpater, 
however, never interfered with him, although Jesus 
expressed himself sometimes very severely in his reg- 
ard.f At Tiberias, his usual residence, the Tetrarch 
was only four or five miles from the region chosen for 
the centre of his activity ; he heard of his miracles, 
which he doubtless supposed were cunning tricks, and 
he desired to see some of them.f The faithless were 
at that time very curious in such wonders.j With 
his ordinary tact, Jesus refused. He took good care 
not to wander forth into an irreligious world, which 
desired of him nothing but a vain amusement; he 
aspired only to gain the people ; he reserved for the 
simple means good for them alone. 

* Matt., xn, 14rl6; Mark, lu, 7j ix, 29-30. f Mark, viii; 15; Luke, xiii, 32. 
t Luke, IX, 9; xxiu, 8. | Lucius, attributed to Lucian,4. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 27T 

For a momentj the rumor spread that Jesus was 
none other than John the Baptist resuscitated from the 
dead. Antipater was anxious and troubled "j"^ he em- 
ployed a ruse to rid his dominions of the new prophet. 
Some Pharisees, apparently from friendship towards 
Jesus, came and told him that Antipater designed 
to put him to death. Jesus notwithstanding his great 
simplicity, detected the snare and did not depart.f 
His altogether peaceful ways, his repugnance to popu- 
lar agitation finally reassured the Teti-arch and dissi- 
pated the danger. 

The new doctrine was far from meeting with an 
equally favorable reception in all the towns of Galilee. 
Not only did unbelieving IN^azareth continue to reject 
him who was to be her glory ; not only did his broth- 
ers persist in not believing on him ;:|: but the cities of 
the lake even, generally favorable, were not all con- 
verted. Jesus frequently bemoans the incredulity and 
hardness of heart which he encounters, and, although 
it is natural to manifest in such reproaches something 
of the exaggeration of the preacher, although we feel 
in them that species of convicium seculi in which Jesus 
delighted in imitation of John the Baptist,! it is clear 
that the country was far from flocking altogether to 
the kingdom of God. '^ Woe unto thee, Chorazin ! 
woe unto thee, Bethsaida! he exclaimed, for if the 
mighty works which were done in you had been done 
in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago 
in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall 
be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of 
judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, 

* Matt., XIV, 1 seqq.; Mark, vi, 14 seqq.; Luke, ix, 7 seqq. 

+ Luke, XIII, 31 seqq. 

J John, VII, 5. 11 Matt., xii, 39, 45- xiii, 15; xvi, 4; Luke, xi, 29. 



278 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

whicli art exalted unto heaven, shall be brought down 
unto hell : for if the mightj works which have been 
done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have 
remained until this day. But I say unto jou. That it 
shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom, in the 
day of judgment, than for tliee.""^ "The queen of 
Sheba, added he, shall rise up in the judgment with 
the men of this generation, and condemn them : for 
she came from the utmost parts of the earth, to hear 
the wisdom of Solomon ; and behold, a greater than 
Solomon is here. The meu of Nineveh shall rise up in 
the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn 
it : for they repented at the preaching of Jonas ; and 
behold, a greater than Jonas is here."f His wander- 
ing and precarious life, at first full of charm to him, 
began also to weigh upon him. " The foxes " said he 
" have holes and the birds of the air have nests ; but 
the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. "J 
Bitterness and reproach become more and more mani- 
fest in his heart. He accused the unbelieving of re- 
fusing to yield to the evidence, and said that, even at 
the moment when the Son of man should appear in 
his celestial glory, there would still be those who 
would doubt him. I 

Jesus indeed could not accept opposition with the 
coolness of the philosopher, who, understanding the 
reason of the diverse oi)inions which divide the world, 
takes it as a matter of course that others should not be 
>f his way of thinking. One of the principal faults 
..f the Jewish race is its bitterness in controversy, and 
;lie abusive tone which it almost always assumes in it. 

* Matt., XI. 21-24; Luke, ix, 12-15. + Matt., xii, 41-42; Luke, xi, 31-32. 

Z Matt., VIII, 20; Luke, ix,58. J Luke, xviii, 8. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 279 

There were never in the world such passionate quar- 
rels as those which the Jews had among themselves. 
It is the sentiment of delicate discrimination which 
renders man polished and moderate. Now the lack 
of delicate discriminations is one of the most constant 
traits of the Semitic mind. Fine productions, the dia 
logues of Plato, for example, are entirely foreign to 
the genius of these nations. Jesus, who was exempt 
from nearly all the defects of his race, and whose 
dominant quality was precisely an infinite delicacy, 
was led in spite of himself, to make use in polemics 
of the prevalent style.* Like John the Baptist,f he 
employed against his adversaries very harsh terms. 
Of an exquisite gentleness with the simple, he became 
severe in the presence of incredulity, even that which 
was least aggressive.:|: He was no longer the mild 
teacher of the "Sermon on the Mount," who had as 
yet met neither resistance nor difficulty. Passion, 
which lay at the bottom of his character, now drew 
him into the most ardent invective. This singular ad- 
mixture ought not to surprise us. A man of our own 
time has presented the same contrast with extraordi- 
nary distinctness, M. de Lamennais. In his beautiful 
book, ''^Paroles d'un croyant^'' the most unbridled 
anger and the gentlest reflections alternate as in a mi- 
rage. This man, who had great kindness in the con- 
versation of life, became harsh even to madness to- 
wards those who failed to think as he did. Jesus, in 
the same manner, applied to himself not unjustly the 
passage of the book of Isaiah :|| " He shall not cry, 
nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. 

* Matfc. xn, 34; xv, 14; xxiii, 33 t Matt., m, 7. 

% Matt, XII, 30; Luke, xxi, 2-3. | XLii, 2-3. 



280 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking 
liax shall he not quench.""^ Nevertheless many of the 
commands which he gives to his disciples contain the 
^-errns of true fanaticism,f germs which the middle 
uges were to develope in a cruel way. Should he be 
blamed for this ? No revolution is ever accomplished 
without some rudeness. If Luther, if the actors of the 
French Kevolution had been compelled to observe the 
rules of politeness, the Keformation and the Eevolu- 
tion would not have been. Let ns congratulate our- 
selves also that Jesus met with no law to punish out- 
rage on any class of citizens. The Pharisees would 
have been inviolable. All the great things of human- 
ity have been accomplished in the name of absolute 
principles. A critical philosopher would have said to 
his disciples : Respect the opinion of others, and be- 
lieve that no one is so completely in the right that his 
adversary is completely in the wrong. But the action 
of Jesus has nothing in common with the disinterested 
speculation of the philosopher. To confess that one 
has for a moment attained the ideal, and has been 
checked by the malignity of others, is a thought insup- 
portable to an ardent soul. What must it have been 
to the founder of a new world ? 

The invincible obstacle to the ideas of Jesub came 
above all from orthodox Judaism, represented by the 
Pharisees. Jesus was departing more and more from 
the ancient Law. Now, the Pharisees were the genu- 
ine Jews, the nerve and strength of Judaism. Al- 
though this party had its centre at Jerusalem, it had 
nevertheless its adepts either living in Galilee, or com 

• Matt., XII, 19-20. t Matt., x, 14-15, 21 seqq.; 34 seqq. ; Luke, xix, 21. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 281 

ing thither frequently.* They were in general people 
of narrow mind, much given to outward appearances, 
of a scornful devotion, formal, self satisfied, and self- 
confident.f Their manners were ridiculous, and caused 
a smile even in those who respected them. The nick- 
names which the people bestowed upon them, and 
which partake of caricature, evidence this. There was 
the " bandy-legged Pharisee" {Nikji)^ w^ho walked in 
the streets dragging his feet and hitting them against 
the stones; "the raw -headed Pharisee," {Kiza%)^ 
who went with his eye-s closed in order not to see the 
women, and knocked his forehead against the walls so 
that it was always bloody : " the drumstick Pharisee" 
{Medoukia) who stood folded up like the leg of a fowl ; 
the " heavy-shouldered Pharisee," {Schikmi) who 
walked with his back bent as if he bore upon his 
shoulders the entire weight of the Law; the " What is 
there to he done f I will do it Pharisee," always on the 
scent for a precept to 'be obeyed, and finally the 
'' painted Pharisee," to whom all the externals of de- 
votion were only a varnish of hypocrisy .J This rigor- 
ousness was, indeed, frequently only apparent, and 
concealed in reality great moral laxity.] The people 
nevertheless were its dupes. The people, whose in- 
stincts are always right, even when they blunder most 
fearfully upon the question of persons, are very easily 

* Mark, vii, 1; Luke, v, 17 seqq.; vii, 36. 

f Matt., VI, 2, f>, 16; ix; 11, 14; xii, 2; xxiil, 5, 15, 23; Luke, v, 30; vi, 2, 7; xi, 
89 seqq ; xviii, 12; John, ix, 16; Pirke Aboth, i, 16; Jos., Ant, XVII, ii, 4; 
XVIII. I, 3; Vita, 38; Talm. of Bab., Sola, 22 h. 

:}: Talm. of Jerus., Berakoth, ix, sub flu.; Sola, V, 7; Talm. of Bab., Sota, 22 b. 
The two versions of this curious passage present sensible differences. We have 
in general followed the Talmud of Babylon, which seems more natural. Cf. 
Epiph., Adv hcer., xvi, 1. The statements of Epiphanius and many of those of 
theTalmudmay,however,relate to an epoch posterior to Jesus, an epoch in 
which " Pharisee " had become the spnonyme of-' devotee? ' 

II Matt, V, 20; xv, 4; xxiii, 3, 16 seqq.; John, vin,7; Jos., Ant., XII, ix, 1 
XIII, X, 6. 



282 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

deceived bj pretended devotees. What the people 
love in them is good and worthy of being loved ; but 
they have not sufficient penetration to discriminate 
between the appearance and the reality. 

The antipathy which, in so passionate a world, must 
from the first have burst forth between Jesus and per 
sons of this character, is easy to comprehend. Jesus 
desired nothing but the religion of the heart ; that of 
the Pharisees consisted almost exclusively in observ- 
ances. Jesus sought out the humble and the down- 
trodden of every sort ; the Pharisees saw in that an 
insult to their religion of respectability. A Pharisee 
was an infallible and impeccable man, a pedant, sure 
that he was right, taking the first place in the syna- 
gogue, praying in the streets, giving alms at the 
sound of the trumpet, and looking about to see if he 
were saluted. Jesus maintained that all men should 
await the judgment of God with fear and humility. 
But the false religious direction represented by the 
Pharisees was far from reigning without control. Ma- 
ny men before Jesus, or of his time, such as Jesus the 
son of Sirach, one of the real ancestors of Jesus of Na- 
zareth, Gamaliel, Antigonus of Soco, and especially 
the mild and noble Hillel, had taught religious doc- 
trines far more elevated, and already almost evangeli- 
cal. But these good seeds had been stifled, the beau- 
tiful maxims of Hillel, condensing all the Law into 
equity,* those of Jesus the son of Sirach, making wor- 
ship consist in the practice of good,f were forgotten or 
anathematized. :|: Schammai, with his narrow and ex- 
clusive spirit, had gained the victory ; an enormous 

*Talm. ofBsib.,Sc7iaJ)b(Uh,Zla;Joma,25b. t^^xvir,21seqq.; xxxv,lS6qq. 
X Talm of Jerus., (SawAedrin, xi, 1; Talm. of Bab , Sanhedrin, 100 6. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 283 

mass of " traditions" had stifled the Law,* under pre- 
text of caring for it and interpreting it. Undoubted- 
ly these conservative measures had had their portion 
of utility ; it was well that tlie Jewish people should 
love their Law to madness, since it was this fanatical 
love which, by saving the religion of Moses, under 
Antiochus Epiphanes and under Herod, preserved the 
leaven whence Christianity was to arise. But taken 
in themselves, all these old precautions were merely 
puerile. The synagogue which was their depository, 
was now nothing more than a mother of errors. Its 
reign was ended, and yet to ask it to abdicate, was to 
ask the impossible, what no established power has ever 
done or can do. 

The struggles of Jesus with official hypocrisy were 
continuous. The ordinary tactics of reformers who 
arise in the religious state which we have just describ- 
ed, and which may be called " religions formalism," 
is to oppose the " text " of the sacred books to the 
" traditions." Religious zeal is always innovating, 
even when it claims to be conservative in the highest 
degree. Just as the Keo- Catholics of our day are 
continually departing from the Gospel, so the Phari- 
sees departed at every step from the Bible. This is ~^ 
why the Puritan reformer usually is particularly " bi- 
blical," starting from the immutable text to criticise 
tlie current theology which has been progressing from 
generation to generation. Thus did the Karaites, and / 
the Protestants at a later day. Jesus laid the axe at 
the root of the tree far more energetically. We see 
him sometimes, it is true, invoke the text against the 
pretended Masores or traditions of the Pharisees.f 

♦ Matt., XV, 2. t Matt., xt, 2 seqq. ; Mark, vii, 2 seqq. 



284 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

But, in general, he makes little of exegesis; it is the 
conscience to wMch he appeals. At the same blow he 
hews down text and commentaries. He shows clearly 
to tlie Pharisees, that with tlieir traditions they are 
seriously innovating upon the religion of Moses ; but 
he by no means claims himself to return to Moses. 
His aim was forward, not backwaid. Jesus was more 
than the reformer of a superannuated religion ; he was 
the creator of the eternal religion of humanity. 

Disputes arose, especially in regard to a multitude 
ot external rites introduced by tradition, and which 
neither Jesus nor his disciples observed.* The Phar- 
isees reproached them for it severely. When he dined 
with them, he scandalized them greatly by not con- 
forming to the prescribed ablutions. '' Give ye alms, 
said he, and all things shall become clean unto you."f 
What offended in the highest degree his delicate sen- 
sitiveness was the air of assurance which the Phari- 
sees carried into religious affairs, their contemptible 
devotion, which resulted in an empty search for pre- 
rogatives and titles, and in no wise in the amelioration 
of the heart. An admirable parable interpreted this 
idea with infinite charm and exactness. " One day, 
said he, two men went up into the temple to pray ; the 
one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Phari- 
see stood up and prayed thus wdth himself, God, I 
thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortion- 
ers, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I 
fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I pos- 
sess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not 
lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote up- 

* Matt., XV, 2 seqq.; Mark, vii, 4, 8; Luke, v, sub fin. ; and ri, init.; xi, 38 seqq. 
t Luke, XI, 41. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 285 

on his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. 
I tell yon, this man went down to his house justified 
rather than the other."* 

A hatred which could be appeased only by deatii 
was the consequence of these struggles. John the 
Baptist had already provoked hostilities of the same 
kind.f But the aristocrats of Jerusalem, who dis- 
dained him, had allowed the simple people to consider 
him a prophet.:j: ItTow, the war was to the death. It 
was a new spirit which appeared in the world and 
which struck with decay all that had preceded it. 
John the Baptist was thoroughly a Jew ; Jesus was 
hardly so at all. Jesus addresses himself always to 
the delicacy of the moral sentiment. He is a disputer 
only when he argues against the Pharisees, the adver- 
sary forcing him, as happens almost always, to take 
his own tone. II His exquisite irony, his arch provo- 
cations, always struck to the heart. Eternal darts, 
they remained fixed in the wound. The ]N"essus shirt 
of ridicule, which the Jew, son of the Pharisees, has 
dragged after him in tatters for these eighteen centu- 
ries, was woven by Jesus with divine art. Master- 
pieces of lofty raillery, his traits are written in lines 
of fire upon the flesh of the hypocrite and the pre- 
tended devotee. Incomparable traits, traits worthy 
of a Son of God ! Thus, a God alone can kill. Socra- 
tes and Moliere but graze the skin. He carries fire 
and madness into the marrow of the bones. ' 

But it was j ust also that this great master of irony 
should pay for his triumph with his life. Even in 
Galilee, the Pharisees employed against him the 

* Luke, xviii, 9-14; Comp. ibid., xiv, 7-11. 

t Matt., in, 7 seqq.; XVII, 12-13. tMatt.,xiv,5;xxi,26;Mark,jut,32:Luke,xxi,6. 
Matt, xii, 3-8; XXIII, 16 seqq. 



286 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

device, which was afterwards to be successful at Jeru- 
salem. They undertook to interest in their quarrel 
the partizans of the new political order which had 
been established.* The facilities for escape which Je- 
sus found in Galilee, and the feebleness of the govern- 
ment of Antipater defeated these endeavors. He went 
of himself to meet the daoger. He saw well that his 
action, if it were confined to G-alilee, was necessarily 
limited. Judea drew him as by a charm ; he would 
make a last attempt to gain over the rebellious city, 
and seemed to assume the task of justifying the pro- 
verb that a prophet might not perish out of Jerusa- 
lem.! 

* Mark, ni,6. f Luke, xiii, 33. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 287 



CHAPTEK XXI. 

LAST JOTTENEY OF JESUS TO JERUSALEM. 

Longtime had Jesus divined the dangers which 
surrounded him.* For a period which we may 
estimate at eighteen months, he avoided the pilgrim- 
age to Jerusalem. f At the feast of Tahernacles of the 
year 82 (according to the hypothesis which we have 
adopted), his relatives, still indisposed and incredulous.:!: 
induced him to go thither. The evangelist John seems 
to intimate that there was in this invitation some con- 
cealed project to destroy him. " Show thyself to the 
world," said they ; '' these things are not done in secret. 
Go into Judea, that men may see the works that thou 
doest." Jesus, suspecting some treachery, at first re- 
fused ; afterwards, when the caravan of pilgrims was 
gone, he began the journey unknown to all, and almost 
alone, I This was his last farewell to Galilee. The 
feast of Tabernacles fell upon the autumnal equinox. 
Six months were yet to roll away before the fatal end. 
But during this interval Jesus did not see again his 
dear provinces of the ISTorth. The grateful days aro 
passed; he must now tread step by step the painful 
path which shall end in the agonies of death. 

* Matt , XVI, 20-21; Mark, viiij 30-31. f John, vii, 1. 

X John, VII, 6. B John, vii, 10 



288 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

His disciples and the pious women who waited on 
him met him in Judea.* But to him how changed 
were all things here ! Jesus was a stranger In Jerusa- 
lem. He felt that there was here a wall of resistance 
which he could not penetrate. Surrounded bj snares 
and objections, he was incessantly pursued by the ill- 
will of the Pharisees. f Instead of this unlimited fa- 
cility of faith, the happy gift of young natures, which 
he found in Galilee, instead of these wild and gentle 
people to whom objection (which is always the 
fruit of some little malevolence and indocility) found 
no access, he encountered here at every step an obsti- 
nate incredulity, upon which the means of action which 
had succeeded so well in the North produced little ef- 
fect. His disciples, being Gralileans, were despised. 
J^icodemus, who had on one of his previous journeys 
had an interview with him by night, almost compro- 
mised himself with the Sanhedrin for attempting to 
defend him. " What ! art thou also a Galilean ?" said 
tliey ; '' search the Scriptures ; can a prophet come out 
of Galilee ?":t 

The city, as we have already said, was unpleasant 
unto Jesus. Thus far, he had always avoided the great 
centers, preferring for his field of action the country 
and towns of small importance. Many of the precepts 
which he gave the apostles were absolutely inapplica- 
ble outside of a simple society of humble people. || 
Having no idea of the world, accustomed to his friend- 
ly Galilean communism, naivetes were constantly es- 
caping him, which at Jerusalem might appear singu 

i 

* Matt., xxvii, 55; Mark, xv, 41. Luke, xxiii, 49, 55. 

f John, VII, 20, 26, 30, 32. 

J John, VII, 60 seqq. | Matt, x, 11-13; Mark, vi, 10; Luke, x, 5-8. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 289 

lar.* His imagination, his taste for nature found itself 
constrained within these walls. The true religion was 
not to spring from the tumult of cities, but from the 
tranquil serenity of the fields. 

The arrogance of the priests rendered the porches of 
the temple distasteful to him. One day, some of his 
disciples, who knew Jerusalem better than he, wished 
to attract his attention to the beauty of the buildings 
of the temple, the admirable selection of materials, 
and the votive offerings which covered the walls : " See 
ye all these things," said he ; •' verily I say unto you, 
there shall not be left here one stone upon another."f 
He refused to admire anything except a poor widow 
who was passing at that moment, and threw into the 
treasury a small coin: "She has given more than they, 
all," said he; "the others have given out of their 
abundance ; she, of her want.";]: This manner of crit- 
ically regarding all that was done at Jerusalem, of ex- 
alting the poor who gave little, and abusing the rich 
who gave much,|| of blaming the opulent clergy who 
did nothing for the good of the people, naturally exas- 
perated the priestly caste. The seat of a conservative 
aristocracy, the temple, like the Moslem haram which 
has supplanted it, was the last place in the world 
in which the revolution could succeed. Imagine an 
innovator of our day going to preach the overthrow 
of Islamism about the Mosque of Omar. Here was, 
however, the center of Jewish life, the point at which 
ho must conquer or die. Upon this Calvary, where 
certainly Jesus suffered more than at Golgotha, his 



♦ Matt., XXI, 3; xxvi, 18; Mark, xi, 3; xiv, 13-14; Luke, xix, 31; xxn, 10-12. 
I Matt., XXIV, 1-2; Mark, xni, 1-2; Luke, xix, 44; xxi, 5-6. Cf. Mark, xi, 
; Mark, XII, 41 seqq, ; Luke, xxi, 1 seqq. H Mark, xii, 41. 



13 



290 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

days rolled by in dispute and in acrimony, in weari- 
some controversies concerning canonical law and 
exegesis, in which his great moral elevation secured 
him little advantage, nay, rather gave him a species 
of inl'eriority. 

In the midst of this troubled life, the kijidly and 
sensitive heart of Jesus succeeded in creating for it- 
self an asylum in which he had much sweet enjoy- 
ment. After passing the day in the disputes of the 
temple, Jesus descended at evening into the valley of 
Cedron, took a little repose in the orchard of a farm- 
ing establishment (probably for the manufacture of 
oil) named Gethsemane^^ which served as a pleasure- 
garden for the inhabitants, and went to pass the night 
upon the Mount of Olives, which bounds the horizon 
of the city on the east.f This side is the only one 
which, in the environs of Jerusalem, presents an as- 
pect in any degree verdant and cheerful. Plantations 
of olive, fig and palm trees were numerous and gave 
their names to the villages, farms or enclosures of 
Bethphage, Gethsemane, and Bethany.J There were 
upon the Mount of Olives two great cedars, the mem- 
ory of which was long preserved among the exiled 
Jews ; their branches served as an asylum for clouds 
of doves, and under their shade little bazaars were es- 
tablished.! This whole suburb was to a certain extent 
the quarter of Jesus and his disciples ; they seem to 
have known it field by field and house by house. 



» Mark, xi, 19; Luke, xxii, 89, John, xviii, 1-2. This orchard could not hare 
been far from the place where the piety of the Catholics has surrounded some 
old olive trees with a wall. The word Gdlisemane seems to signify " an oil-press." 



+ Luke, XXI, 87; xxii, 39^ John, viii, 1-2, 



lalm. of Bab., PescuMm^ 63 a. D Talm. of Jerus., ToMnith, ir, 8. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 291 

The Tillage of Bethany, in particular,* situated at 
the summit of the hill, upon the slope towards the 
Dead Sea and the Jordan, six miles from Jerusalem, 
was the favorite resting-place of Jesus.f He there 
made the acquaintance of a familj^ composed of three 
persons, two sisters and a brother, whose friendship 
was very dear to him.:j: Of the two sisters, one, 
named Martha, was an obliging, kind and eager per- 
son ;| the other, on the contrary, named Mary, pleased 
Jesus by a species of languor,§ and by her largely de- 
veloped speculative instincts. Often seated at the feet 
of Jesus, she forgot to attend to the duties of material 
life. Her sister, at such times, upon whom fell all the 
labor, complained gently : " Martha, Martha, said Je- 
sus uLto her, thou art careful and troubled about 
many things; but one thing is needful; and Mary 
hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken 
away from her."^ The brother, Eleazer, or Lazarus, 
w^as also much beloved by Jesus.** Finally, a certain 
Simon the Leper, who was the owner of the house, 
constituted, it appears, a part of the family. ff It was 
there, in the embrace of a pious friendship, that 
Jesus lorgot the disgusts of public life. Li this tran- 
quil household, he found consolation for the annoy- 
ances which the Pharisees and the Scribes never 
ceased to excite against him. He often seated him- 
self upon the Mount of Olives, opposite Mount Mo- 
riah,:t:t ^^^^ ^xed his eyes upon the splendid perspec- 
tive of the terraces of the temple and its roofs covered 

* Now El-Azirie (from El-Azir, the Arabian name of Lazarus) ; in the Christian 
texts of the middle ages, Lazarium. 
+ Matt., XXI, 17-18; Mark, xi, 11-12. J John, xi, 5. 

I Luke, X, 38-42; John, xii, 2. ^ John, xi, 20. ^ Luke, x, 38 seqq. 

** John, XI, 35-36. » > hh 

j-f Matt , XXVI, 6; Mark, xiv. 3; Luke, vii, 40, 43; John, xii, 1 seqq. 
iX Mark, xiii 8. ' 



292 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

with sparkling metallic plates. This prospect inspired 
strangers with admiration ; at smirise especially, the 
sacred mountain dazzled the eyes and appeared like a 
mass of snow and gold."^ But a deep feeling of sad- 
ness embittered to Jesus the spectacle which filled all 
other Israelites with joy and pride. " Jerusalem, Je- 
rusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest 
them wliich are sent unto tliee, exclaimed he at such 
bitter moments, how often would I have gathered thy 
children together, even as a hen gathereth her chick- 
ens under her wings, and ye would not l"f 

I^ot that many good souls, here as well as in Gali- 
lee, were not touched. But such was the weight of 
the dominant orthodoxy that very few dared confess 
it. Men feared to discredit themselves in the eyes of 
the Hierosolymites by joining the school of a Galilean. 
They would have risked being driven out of the syna- 
gogue, which in a mean and bigoted society was the 
greatest possible affront. J Excommunication, more- 
over, entailed the confiscation of property. || By ceas- 
ing to be a Jew a man did not become a Koman ; he 
was left without defense against the power of a theo- 
cratic legislation of the most atrocious severity. One 
day, the under officers of the temple, who had attended 
one of the discourses of Jesus and had been enchanted 
with it, came to confide their doubts to the priest : 
" Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed 
on him," was the reply : ^' this people who knoweth 
not the Law, are cursed. "§ Jesus remained thns at 
Jerusalem a countryman admired by countrymen like 

* Josephus, B.J.,Y,Y,6. t Matt, xxiii, 37; Luke, xiii, 34. 

X John, vii. 13- xii, 42-43; xix, r" 
I I Esdr.,X;8i Heb 
^ John, VII, 45 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 293 

himself, but repelled by all the aristocracy of the na- 
tion. The leaders of schools and sects were too nu- 
merous for the appearance of another to create much 
excitement. His voice gained little fame at Jerusa- 
lem. Prejudices of race and sect, the direct enemies 
of the spirit of the gospel, were too deeply rooted 
there. 

His teaching, in this new world, necessarily became 
greatly modified. His beautiful sermons, which were 
always calculated to affect the young imagination and 
the moral purity of the conscience of his auditors, 
here fell npon stone. He himself, so at ease on the 
shore of his charming little lake, was constrained and 
thrown out of his proper element in the presence of 
pedants. His perpetual affirmations concerning him- 
self began to be somewhat wearisome.* He was 
obliged to make himself a controversialist, a jurist, an 
expounder, and a theologian. His conversations, or- 
dinarily full of grace, become a rnnning fire of dis- 
pute8,t an interminable succession of scholastic bat- 
tles. His harmonious genius is extenuated in insipid 
argumentations upon the Law and the prophets, :j: in 
which we would sometimes prefer not to see him act 
the part of the aggressor.] He lends himself, with a 
condescension that wounds us, to the captious inqui- 
ries which quibblers without tact force upon hini.§ In 
general, he extricated himself from embarrassment 
with great address. His reasonings, it is true, were 
often subtle (simplicity of mind and subtlety touch 
each other; when the simple man would reason, he 
is always a little sophistical) ; we can see that some- 

* John, Tni, 13 seqq, f Matt, xxi, 23-37. J Matt., xxii, 23 seqq. 

I Matt , XX a, 42 seqq. ^ Matt, xxii, 36 seqq., 46. 



294 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

times lie seeks misunderstandings^ and purposely pro- 
longs them ;^ his ratiocination, judge:! by the rules of 
Aristotelean logic, is very weak. But when the peerless 
charm of his spirit could riianifest itself, he was trium- 
phant. One day some one thought to embarrass him 
by presenting an adulterous woman and asking him 
how she should be treated. We know the admirable 
reply of Jesus.f The acute raillery of the man of the 
world, tempered b}^ a divine goodness, could find ex- 
pression in no more exquisite manner. But the wit 
which is allied to moral grandeur is that which fools 
can least pardon. When he pronounced these words 
uf a discernment so just and so pure, " He that is with- 
out sin among you, let him cast the first stone," Jesus 
pierced liypocrisy to the heart, and at the same mo- 
ment signed bis death own warrant. 

It is probable, indeed, that without the exaspera- 
tion caused by so many bitter retorts, Jesus might 
long have remained unknown, and have been lost in 
the terrible tempest which was soon to overwhelm the 
whole Jewish nation. The high priests and the Sad- 
ducees felt for him contempt rather than hatred. The 
great priestly families, the Boethusim^ the family of Ila- 
nan, were fanatical in nothing but repose. The Saddu- 
cees, like Jesus, repelled the " traditions " of the Phari- 
sees. J By a very strange singularity, it was these unbe- 
1 levers, denying the resurrection, the oral law, and th 

* See especially the discussions reported by Jobn, chap, vii, for example; it i 
true that the authenticity of such fragments is only relative. 

t John, VIII ; 3 seqq. This passage did not constitute, at first, a part of the Gospel 
of John: it is wanting in the most ancient manuscripts, and the text of it is un- 
certain. ^Nevertheless, it is a primitive evangelical tradition, as is proved by the 
.'■•riking particularity of verses 6 and 8, which are not in the style of Luke, and 
of the second-hand compilers, who state nothing which does not explain itself. 
This history was continued, it would seem, in the Gospel according to the He- 
brews (Papias. cit«d by Euticbius, Jii&t. ecd., Ill, 39). 

X Jos., Anl. /Kill, X, 6; XVIII, T, 4. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 295 

existence of angels, who were tlie genuine Jews, or, to 
speak more properly, the ancient law in its simplicity no 
longer satisfied the religious needs of the time, those 
who held strictly to it and rejected the modern inven- 
tions seemed to tlie devotees impious, much as an evan- 
gelical Protestant now appears an infidel in orthodox 
countries. At all events, it was not from such a party 
that a very severe reaction against Jesus could come. 
The official priesthood, looking towards the political 
power and ultimately allied with it, compi-ehended no- 
thing of these enthusiastic movements. It was the 
Pharisaic bourgeoisie, the innumerable soferim or 
scribes, living by the knowledge of the " traditions," 
who took alarm, and who were in reality menaced in 
their prejudices and their interests by the teaching of 
the new master. 

One of the most constant efforts of the Pharisees was 
to draw Jesus into the arena of political questions and 
to compromise him with the party of Juda the Gaulo- 
nite. The tactics were skillful ; for it required the 
profound ingenuity of Jesus never to have become im- 
broiled with the Roman authority, notwithstanding 
his proclamation of the kingdom of God. They wished 
to tear away t^iis ambiguity, and to compel him to ex- 
plain. One day, a group of Pharisees of the political 
order called " Herodians," (probably Boethusim) ap- 
proached him, and under the appearance of pious zeal: 
" Master, said they, we know that thou art true, and 
teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou 
for any man ; for thou regardest not the person of 
men. Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou ? Is it 
lawful to give tribute unto Csesar, or not ?" They 
hoped for an answer which would give a pretext for 



296 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

delivering Mm to Pilate. That of Jesus was admira- 
ble. He caused the image upon the current coin to 
be shown him. " Render, said he, unto Cgesar the 
things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that 
are God's."* Deep words which decided the future 
of Christianity ! Words of perfect spirituality and a 
marvellous justness, which founded the separation of 
the spiritual from the temporal, and established the 
foundation of true liberalism and of true civilization ! 

His gentle and penetrating genius inspired him, 
when he was alone among his disciples, with accents 
full of charm: " Y erily, verily , I say unto you, He 
that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold is a 
robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the 
shepherd of the sheep. The sheep hear his voice ; and 
he calleth them out : he goeth before them, and the 
sheep follow him ; for they know his voice. The thief 
Cometh not but to steal and to kill and to destroy. 
The hireling, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the 
wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleetli. But 
I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am 
known of mine ; and I lay down my life for my 
sheep."t The idea of a speedy solution of the crisis 
of humanity comes bef)re him: "When the branch 
of the fig-tree, said he, is yet tender, and putteth 
forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh. Lift up 
your eyes and look upon the world ; it is white for 
the harvest.":!: 

His vigorous eloquence was always exhibited when 
he was called to combat hypocrisy. " The scribes and 
Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: All therefore whatsoever 

* Matt. , XII, 15 seqq. ; Mark, xii, 13 seqq.; Luke, xx, 20 seqq. Oomp. Talm. of 
Jervifi.,Sanhedrin, II, ;i. t John, x, 1-16. 

X Matt., XXIV, 32; Mark, xiir, 28; Luke, xxi, 30; John, iv, 35. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 297 

they bid you observe, that observe and do : but do not 
ye after tlieir works ; for they say and do not. For 
they bind lieavy burdens and grievous to be borne, 
and lay them on men's shoulders ; but they themselves 
will not move them with one of their fingers." 

" But all their works they do for to be seen of men : 
they make broad their phylacteries,* and enlarge the 
borders of their garments, f and love tlie uppermost 
rooms at feasts, and tlie chief seats in tlie synagogues, 
and greetings in tlie markets, and to be called of men, 
' Master ! ' Woe unto them ! 

" Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! 
who have taken the key of knowledge and use it only 
to shut up the kingdom of heaven against men ! J Ye 
neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that 
are entering to go in. Woe unto you, for ye compass 
sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is 
made, ye make him two-fold more the child of hell 
than yourselves. Woe unto you, for you are as graves 
which appear not, and over which men walk una- 
wares ! II 

" Ye fools and blind I who pay tithe of mint and 
anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier- 
matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith ; these 
ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other un- 

* Tota-foth or tefilUn, plates of metal or bands of parchment, containing passages 
Of the Law, which the Jewish devotees wore on the forehead and the left arm, 
literally carrying out the passages Ex. . xiii, 9; Dent. , vi, 8; xi, 18. 

•)• Zizith, red borders or fringes, which the Jews wore on the corner of their 
mantles to distinguish them from pagans (Numbers, xv, 38-39; Deut., xxii, 12). 

X The Pharisees exclude men from the kingdom of God by their fastidious 
casuistry, which renders the entrance too difl&cult, and discourages the simple. 

II Contact with graves rendered impure. So they took heed to mark carefully 
their outline upon the ground. Talm. of Bab,, Baba Bathra 58 a; Baba Mehia, 45 
b. The reproach that Jesus addresses here to the Pharisees is that they have in- 
vented a multitude of petty precepts which are violated thoughtlessly, and which 
■erve only to multiply transgressions of the Law. 

13* 



298 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

done. Blind guides, who strain your wine for a gnat, 
and swallow a camel, woe unto you ! 

" Woe unto 3'ou, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! 
for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the 
platter,* but within they are full of extortion and of 
excess. Blind Pharisee, f cleanse first that which is 
within; then mayst thou look to the cleanliness of that 
which is without.":]: 

'' Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! 
for ye are like unto wliited sepulchres,! which indeed 
appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead 
men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also 
outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye 
are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. 

" Woe unto you, s,cribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! 
because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and gar- 
nish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we 
had been in the ds.j& of our fathers, we wonld not 
have been partakers with them in the blood of the 
prophets. Wherefore, ye be witnesses unto yourselves, 
that ye are the children of them that killed the pro- 
phets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. 
Therefore also said the Wisdom of God,§ " I will send 
unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes ; and 
some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and some of 

* The purification of dishes was subject among the Pharisees to the most com 
plex rules (Mark, vii, 4). 

t This epithet, often repeated (Matt. , xxiii, 17, 19, 24, 26), contains perhaps an 
allusion to the habit which certain Pharisees had of walking with closed eyes in 
aifectation of sanctity. See above, p. 281. 

t Luke (XI, 37 seqq.) supposes, not without reason, perhaps, that this verse 
was spoken at a meal, in response to the empty scruples of the Pharisees. 

11 Tombs being impure, it was customary to whitewash them, as a warning not 
to approach any. See preceding page, note H , and Mischna, Maasar scheni, v, 1; 
Talm. of.Jerus., ScJiekalim, i,l; Ma/isar scheni, v,l; Moed katon, i, 2; Sota, ix, 1; 
Talm. of Bab. , Moed katon, 5 a. Perhaps there is in the comparison of which Jesus 
makes use an allusion to the " painted Pharisee." See above, p. 281) 

§ From what book this is quoted is unknown. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 299 

them sliall ye scourge in your synagogues, and perse- 
cute them from city to city : that upon you may come 
all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the 
blood of righteous Abel, unto the blood of Zacharias, 
son of Barachias,"^ whom ye slew between the temple 
and the altar. Yerily I say unto you, It shall be re- 
quired of this generation."'!' 

His terrible dogma of the substitution of the Gen- 
tiles, this idea that the kingdom of God was to be 
transferred to others, those for whom it was destin- 
ed not having desired it,:j: came like a bloody menace 
before the aristocracy, and his title of Son of God, 
which he openly avowed in vivid parables, | in which 
his enemies played the part of murderers of the heav- 
enly messengers, was a defiance to legalJudaism. The 
bold appeal which he addressed to the poor was yet 
more seditious. He declared that he had come to 
open the eyes of the blind, and to make blind those 
who thought they saw.§ One day, his harshness to- 
wards the temple drew from him imprudent words: 
"This temple, made with hands, said he, I can, if I 
will, destroy it, and in three days I will rebuild of it 
another, not made with hands."Tf We know not well 
what sense Jesus attached to these words, in which his 
disciples endeavored to discover far-fetched allegories. 
But as a pretext only was desired, this expression was 

* There is here a slight confusion, which is found in the Targum of Jonathan 
(Lament. ,11,20) betweert Zacharias, the son of Jehoiada, and Zacharias, the 
son of Barachias the prophet. It is of the first that mention is made (II Chron. , 
XXIV, 21). The book of Chronicles, in which the assassination of Zacharias, the 
son of Jehoiada, is related, closes the Hebrew canon. This murder is the last 
in the list of murders of just men, arranged according to the order in which they 
are presented in the Bible. That of Abel is, on the other hand, the first 

+ Matt., XXIII, 2-36; Mark, xii, 3840; Luke, xi, S9-52; xx, 46-47. 

X Matt., VIII, li-12; XX. 1 seqq.;xxi,28seqq.;3.38eqq.,43;xxii, 1 seqq.;Mark, 
xii, 1 seqq.; Luko, xx, 9 seqq. 

II Matt., XXI, ;J7 seqq.; John, x, 30 seqq. § John, ix, 39. 

f The most authentic form of this appears to be in Mark, xiv, 58; xv, 29. 
Cf. John, II, 19; Matt., xxvi, 61; xxvii, 40. 



300 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

eagerly caught up. It will figure among tlie reasons 
for the sentence of Jesus to death, and will fall again 
upon his ear in the last agonies of Golgotha. These 
irritating discussions always ended in storms. The 
Pharisees cast stones at him,* in which they only ex- 
ecuted an article of the Law, ordering them to stone 
without a hearing every prophet, even a miracle-work- 
er, who should turn away the people from their an- 
cient worsliip.f At other times, they called him mad, 
possessed, a Samaritan, J or sought even to kill him.f 
They took note of his words to invoke against him the 
laws of an intolerant theocracy, which the Roman do- 
mination had not yet abrogated. § 

* John, VIII, 39; x, 31; xi, 8. 

+ J>eM<., XIII, 1 seqq. Comp Luke, xx, 6; Jolm, x, 33; II Cor., xi, 25. 

I John, X, 20 y John, y, 18; vii, 1, 20, 25, 30; viil, 37-40 

§ Luke, XI, 53-54. 



LIFE or JESUS. 301 



CHAPTER XXII. 

MACHIXATIONS OP TUB ENEMIES OP JESUS. 

Jesus passed the autumn and a part of the winter at 
Jerusalem. This season is rather cold there. Solo- 
mon's porch, with its covered galleries, was the place 
where he walked habitually."^ This porch was com- 
posed of two galleries, formed by three rows of col- 
umns, and covered with a ceiling of carved wood.f It 
overlooked the valley of Cedron, which was undoubt- 
edly less encumbered with ruins than it is at the pres- 
ent day. The eye, from the bight of the porch, could 
not reach the bottom of the ravine, and it seemed, from 
the steepness of the slope, that an abyss opened per- 
pendicularly beneath the wall.:]: The other side of the 
valley already possessed its ornamentation of sumptu- 
ous tombs. Some of the monuments which are seen 
there at this day, are perhaps those cenotaphs in hon- 
or of the ancient prophets || which Jesus pointed at 
with his finger, when, seated under the porch, he 
hurled his anathemas at the official classes, who shel- 

* John, X, 23. 

!^ Jo8.,jB j:,V,v, 2. Comp. ^n«.,XV,xi,5, XX, ix, 7. 
: Jos., places cited. 
I See above, p. 298. I am led to believe that the tombs said to be those of 
Zacharias and of Absalom were monuments of this kmd. Cf. Itin. a Bwdig, 
Hierus., p. 153 (edit. Schott.). 



302 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

tered behind those colossal masses their hypocrisy or 
their vanity.* 

At the end of the month of December, he celebrated 
at Jerusalem the festival established by Jndas Macca- 
beus in memory of the purification of the temple after 
the sacrileges of Antiochus Epiphaues.f They called 
it also the " Feast of the Lights." because during the 
eight days of the feast they kept lamps burning in 
their houses. if Soon afterwards Jesus undertook a 
journey into Perea and upon the banks of the Jordan, 
that is to say, in the same countries which he had 
visited some jears before, when he was following the 
school of John,l and where he had himself adminis- 
tered baptism. He there found, it seems, some solace, 
especially at Jericho. This city, whether as the com- 
mencement of a verj important route, or on account 
of its gardens of perfumes, and its rich plantations,§ 
had a considerable receipt of custom. The chief col- 
lector, Zaccheus, a rich man, desired to see Jesus-T" As 
he was of low stature, he climbed upon a sycamore 
tree near the road which the cortege must pass. Jesus 
was touched by this simplicity on the part of a person 
of consideration. He went to the house of Zaccheus, 
at the risk of produchig scandal. There was much 
murmuring, indeed, at seeing him honor with a visit 
the house of a sinner. On taking leave Jesus declared 
his host a good son of Abraham. And as if to spite 
the orthodox, Zaccheus became a Saint : he gave, it is 

* Matt., xxiii, 29; Luke, xi, 47. 

t John, X, 22. Comp. I Mace, iv, 52 seqq.; II Mace, x, 6 seqq. 

t Jos., ^n<., XII, VII, 7. 

I John, X, 40. Of. Matt, XIX, 2; Mark, x, 1. This journey is known to the 
synoptics. But they seem to believe that Jesus made it coming from Galilee to 
Jerusalem by way of Perea. 

^ Eccl;,xxiv, 18; Strabo, XVI, ii, 41; Justin, xxxvi, 3; Jos., Ant., IV, vi, 1; 
XIV,iv;i; XV, IV, 2. 

^ Luke, XIX, 1 seqq 



LIFE OF JESUS. 303 

said, the half of his goods to the poor, and repaired 
twofold the wrongs which he had committed. This 
was not, however, the only good fortune of Jesus. On 
going out of the city, the beggar Bartimeus* gave him 
great pleasure by persisting in calling him the " son 
of David," although he was bidden to be silent. The 
cycle of the Galilean miracles seemed for a moment to 
open again in this country, which many analogies as- 
sociate with the provinces of the I^^orth. The delight- 
ful oasis of Jericho, then well watered, must have been 
one of the most beautiful places in Syria. Josephus 
speaks of it with the same admiration as of Galilee, 
and calls it as he does this last province, a " divine 
country."f ..- 

Jesus, after having fulfilled this species of pilgrim- 
age to the localities of his first prophetic activity, re- 
turned to his cherished abode at Bethany, where oc- 
curred a singular event which seems to have had de- 
cisive consequences upon the end of his life.:]: Wearied 
out by the ill reception with which the kingdom of 
God met in the capital, the friends of Jesus desired a 
great miracle which should have a powerful eflfect up- 
on Hierosolymite incredulity. The resurrection of a 
man well known at Jerusalem would be more con- 
vincing than anything else. We must recollect here 
that the essential condition of true criticism is to com- 
prehend the diversity of periods, and to lay aside those 
instinctive repugnances which are the fruits of a purely 
national education. We must also recollect that in 
this impure and oppressive city of Jerusalem Jesus 
was no longer himself. His conscience by the fault 

* Matt., XX, 29; Mark, x, 46 seqq. ; Luke, xviii, 35. 

■^ B. J., IV, viii, 3. Comp. ibid., I, vi, 6; I, xviii, 5 and Ant., XV, iv, 2, 

l John, XI, 1 seqq. 



304 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

of men, and not bj his own, had lost something of its 
primitive clearness. | Desperate, pushed to extrem- 
ities, he no longer retained possession of himself. His 
mission imposed itself upon him, and he obeyed the 
torrent. As always happens in great and divine ca- 
leers, he suffered the miracles which public opinion 
demanded of him, rather than performed them. At 
the distance at which we are, and in the presence of a 
single text,, presenting evident traces of artifices of 
composition, it is impossible to decide whether, in the 
present case, the whole is a fiction or whether a real 
event occurring at Bethany served as a basis for the 
rumors which were bruited abroad. "We must recog- 
nize, however, that the character of the narrative of 
John is, in some respects, entirely different from that 
of the stories of miracles, the offspring of .popular im- 
agination, which fill the synoptic gospels. Let us add 
that John is the only Evangelist who has any precise 
knowledge of the relations of Jesus with the family of 
Bethany, and tliat it is hard to understand how a popu- 
lar creation should have come to take its place in a 
framework of recollections so entirely personal. It 
seems, therefore, probable, that the prodigy in question 
was not one of those purely legendary miracles for 
which no one is responsible. In£)ther words, we think 
that something took place at Bethany which was re- 
garded as a resurrection. 

Fame already attributed to Jesus two or three events 
of this kind.* The family of Bethany may have been 
led, almost without suspecting it, to the important acfc 
which was desired. Jesus was there adored. It seems 
that Lazarus was sick, and that it was indeed in con- 

* Matt, IX, 18 seqq. ; Mark, v, 22 seqq. ; Luke, vn, 11 seqq. ; viii, 41 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 305 

sequence of a message from his alarmed sisters, that 
Jesus left Perea.* The joy of his coming might recall 
Lazarus to life. Perhaps also the ardent desire to 
close the mouth of those who furiously denied the di- 
vine mission of their friend, may have carried these 
enthusiastic persons beyond all bounds. Perhaps 
Lazarus, still pale from his sickness, caused himself to 
be swathed in grave clothes, as one dead, and shut up 
iu his family tomb. These tombs were large cham- 
bers cut in the rock, into which they entered through 
a square opening which was closed by an enormous 
flat stone. Martha and Mary came out to meet Je- 
sus, and, without permitting him to enter Bethany, 
conducted him to the sepulchre. The emotion which 
Jesus experienced at the tomb of his friend, whom he 
thought dead,f may have been mistaken by the wit- 
nesses for that groaning, that trembling^ which accom- 
panies miracles ; popular opinion holding that the di- 
vine virtue is in man an element, as it were, epilep- 
tic and convulsive. Jesus, (still following the hypoth 
esis above enunciated,) desired to see once more him 
whom he had loved, and, the stone having been re 
moved, Lazarus came forth with his grave clothes and 
his head bound about with a napkin. This apparition 
must naturally have been regarded by all as a resur- 
rection. Faith knows no other law than the interest 
of what it believes to be the truth. The end which it 
pursues being in its view absolutely holy, it makes no 
scruple about invoking bad arguments in behalf of its 
proposition when good ones do not succeed. If this 
evidence is not real, so many others are ! . . . If this 
prodigy is not genuine, so many others have been ! . . . 

• John, XI, 3 seqq. f John, xi, 35 eeqq. % John, xi, 33, 88. 



306 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Thoroughly persuaded that Jesus was a worker of mira- 
cles, Lazarus and his two sisters may have aided the 
performance of one, as so many pious men, convinced 
of the truth of their religion, have sought to triumph 
over human obstinacy by means of the weakness of 
which they were well aware. The state of their con- 
cience was that of the Stigmatists, the Convulsionists, 
the Obsessed nuns, led on by the influence of the world 
in which they live and by their own belief in the pre- 
tended acts. As to Jesus, he had no more power than 
St. Bernard, or St. Francis d'Assisi to moderate the 
avidity of the multitude and of his own disciples for 
the marvellous. Death, moreover, was in a few days 
to restore to him his divine liberty and to snatch him 
from the fatal necessities of a character which became 
each day more exacting, more difficult to sustain. 
Everything seems to lead to the belief, indeed, that the 
miracle of Bethany contributed directly to hasten the 
death of Jesus.* Those who had witnessed it went 
through the city, and spoke much of it. The disciples 
related the act with scenic details arranged with a 
view to augment its effect. The other miracles of^ 
Jesus were incidental acts accepted spontaneously by 
faith, magnified by popular fame, and which, when 
passed, were not reexamined. This was really an 
event for which public notoriety was claimed, and by 
which they hoped to close the mouths of the Phari- 
sees. f The enemies of Jesus were greatly irritated at 
all this fame. They tried, it is said, to kill Lazarus.;]: 
It is certain that immediately a council was assembled 
by the chief priests,| and that in this council the ques 

* John, II, 46 seqq.; xii, 2, 9 scqq.; 17 seqq. 

t John, XII, 9-10, 17-18. J John, xii, 16 fl John, xi, 47 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 307 

tion was distinctly put : '' Whether Jesus and Ju- 
daism could both live ?" To put the question was 
to answer it, and without being a prophet, as the 
Evangelist has it, the high priest might verj well pro- 
nounce his bloody axiom : " It is expedient that one 
man should die for the whole people." 

" The high priest for that year," to borrow an expres 
Bion of the fourth evangelist, which well exhibits the 
degraded condition to which the sovereign pontificate 
had then fallen, was Joseph Caiaphas, appointed by 
Yalerius Gratus, and wholly devoted to the Komans. 
Since Jerusalem had been governed by the procu- 
rators, the office of high priest had become subject 
to removal; dismissal from it happened almost every 
year.* Caiaphas, nevertheless, maintained himself 
longer than the rest. He was installed in his charge 
in the year 25, and did not lose it until the year 36. 
We know nothing of his character. Many circum- 
stances lead to the belief that his power was merely 
nominal. Beside and above him, indeed, we always 
see another personage, who appears to have exercised, 
at the decisive moment which we are considering, a 
preponderating power. 

This personage was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, 
Hanan or Annas,f son of Seth, the old deposed high 
priest, who in the midst of this instability of the pon- 
tificate, really retained all its authority. Hanan had 
received the high priesthood from the legate Quirinius 
in the year T of our era. He lost his functions in the 
year 14 on the advent of Tiberius ; but he was still 
very highly respected. He continued to be called 

• Jo8.,^n<.,XV, ni, 1; XVIII. ii, 2; v, 3: XX,ix,l, 4 
t The Anarnis of Josephus. It is thus that the Hebrew name Johanan became 
in Greek Joannes or Joannas. 



308 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

" high priest," although he was out of office,* and to 
be consulted upon all important questions. For fifty 
years, the pontificate remained almost without inter- 
ruption in his family : five of his sons successively as- 
sumed that dignity, t without counting Oaiaphas, who 
was his son-in-law. It was what was called the " priest- 
y Family," as if in it the priesthood had become he 
reditary.:j: The higher duties of the temple also, al 
most wholly devolved on them.|| Another family, it 
is true, alternated with that of Hanan in the pontifi- 
cate; the family of Boethas.§ But the Boethusim, 
who owed the origin of their fortune to a cause in no 
wise honorable, were far less esteemed by the pious 
citizens. Hanan was, therefore, really the head of the 
sacerdotal party. Oaiaphas did nothing except through 
him ; it had become a custom to associate their names, 
and that of Hanan indeed always had the first place.^f 
It is easy to comprehend that under this regime of a 
pontificate, annual and changed according to the ca- 
price of the pro-consuls, an old pontifi", who had kept 
the secret of the traditions, had witnessed the succes- 
sion of many fortunes younger than his own, and pre- 
served credit enough to have the power delegated to 
persons who were subordinate to him in the family 
relation, must have been a very important personage. 
Like the aristocracy of the temple,"^* he was a Saddu 
cee, a " sect," says Josephus, " particularly severe in 
their judgments." All his sons were also ardent per- 
secutors.ff One of them, named, like his father 

* John, xnii, 15-23; Ads, iv, 6. f Jos., ^ni., XX, ix, 1. 

t Jos., .4n<., XV, 111,1; B J.,1Y,\\ 6 and 7; ^cte, nr, 6. 

I Jos , JTOi.,XX, IX, 3. 

^ Jos.,^ne.,XV, IX, 3; XIX, vi, 2; viii, 1. 

\ Luke, III, 2. ** Ads, T, 17. 

■ft Jos., ^nf., XX, IX, 1. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 309 

Han an, caused James, a brotlier of the Lord, to be 
stoned, under circumstances which are not witliout 
analogy to the death of Jesus. The spirit of the fam- 
ily was haughty, bold, and cruel ;* it had that peculiar 
sort of disdainful and suspicious malignity which char- 
acterizes Jewish politics. Thus it is upon Hanan and 
his relatives that should rest the responsibility of all 
the acts which are to follow. It was Hanan (or the 
party which he represented) who killed Jesus. Hanan 
was the principal actor in this terrible drama, and far 
more than Caiaphas, more even than Pilate, he shou' 1 
have borne the weight of the maledictions of humanil . 
In the mouth of Caiaphas it is that the Evangelist 
places the decisive declaration which led to the sen- 
tence of death upon Jesus. f It was supposed that the 
high priest possessed a certain gift of prophecy ; the 
declaration became thus to the Christian community 
an oracle full of deep meaning. But this declaration, 
whoever may have pronounced it, was the thought of 
the whole sacerdotal party. This party was very 
strongly opposed to popular seditions. It sought to 
check religious enthusiasts, logically foreseeing that by 
their exalted preaching, they would lead to the total 
ruin of the nation, Although the agitation excited by 
Jesus was in no wise temporal, the priests saw as the 
final consequence of that agitation, an aggravation of 
the Koman yoke, and the fall of the temple, the source 
of their riches and their honors.:j: Certainly the causes 
which were to lead, thirty-seven years later, to the de- 
struction of Jerusalem, did not lie in infant Christianity. 
They existed in Jerusalem itself, and not in Galilee. 
We cannot say, however, that the motive alleged, in 

•Jo8.,^n<.,XX,ix,l. t Johii.xi)*9-50- Of. iWd., XVIII, 14. tJohn,xi,48. 



310 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. i 

this instance, by tlie priests was so utterly improbable 
til at it must be accused of bad faith. In a general 
sense, Jesus, if he succeeded, was bringing on, very 
certainly, the ruin of the Jewish nation. Starting from 
principles accepted at the outset by all ancient polity, 
Hanan and Caiaphas were right in saying : " Better 
the death of one man than the ruin of a people." This 
reasoning seems to us detestable. But this reasoning 
has been that of all conservative parties from the ori- 
gin of human societies. " The part}^ of order " (I use 
this expression in the mean and narrow sense) has al- 
ways been the same. Thinking that the final word of 
government is to check popular emotions, it believes 
that it is doing an act of patriotism when it prevents 
by juridical murder the tumultuous effusion of blood. 
Little thoughtful of the future, it dreams not that by 
declaring war against all progress, it runs the risk of 
wounding the idea which is destined, some day, to tri- 
umph. The death of Jesus was one of the thousand 
applications of this polity. The movement which he 
directed, was altogether spiritual ; but it was a move- 
ment; and for that alone the men of order, convinced 
that the one thing needful for humanity is not to be 
agitated, must prevent the new spirit from spreading. 
Never has been seen by a more striking example how 
such conduct defeats its end. Left free, Jesus would 
have exhausted himself in a hopeless struggle against 
ihe impossible. The unintelligent hatred of his ene- 
mies, determined the success of his work, and put the 
seal upon his divinity. 

The death of Jesus was thus resolved upon in the 
month of February or the beginning of March.* But 

* John, XI, 53. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 311 

Jesns escaped for some time longer. He withdrew to 
a city but little known, called Ephraim or Ephron, in 
the direction of Bethel, a short day's journey from Je- 
rusalem.* He remained there for some days with his 
disciples, allowing the storm to pass over. But orders 
for his arrest so soon as he should be found in Jerusa- 
lem, had been given. The solemnity of the passover 
was approaching, and it was thought that Jesus, ac- 
cording to his custom, would come to celebrate this 
festival at Jerusalem.f 

* John, Ki, 54. Cf. iT C%j'on., xiii, 19; Jos., B. J., IV, ix, 9; EuseWus and St 
Jerome, De situ etnom. loc. Jiebr., at the words 'Efflf'wv and 'EfflPcd'a. 

t John, XI, 55-56. For the order of occurrences, in all this portion, we follow 
the narrative of J ohn. The synoptics do not seem well informed concerning 
that period of the life of Jesus which preceded the passion. 



312 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER XXIIL 

THE LAST WEEK OP JESUS. 

He set out, in fact, with his disciples, to visit for the 
last time the unbelieving city. The hopes of his fol- 
lowers became more and more exalted. All believed, 
in going up to Jerusalem, that the kingdom of God 
was there to be manifested.* The impiety of men be- 
ing at its acme, was a mighty sign that the consumma- 
tion was near. Their conviction of this was such, that 
they already disputed with each other the precedence 
in the kingdom.f This was, it is said, the moment 
which Salome chose to ask for her sons the seats on 
the right and on the left of the Son of man.ij: The 
master, on the contrary, was occupied with grave 
thoughts. Sometimes he suffered to escape a gloomy 
feeling of resentment towards his enemies ; he related 
the parable of a nobleman, who goes into a far coun- 
try to receive a kingdom and to return ; but hardly 
has he departed when his citizens will have him no 
more. The king returns, orders before him those who 
have desired that he should not reign over them, and 

* Luke, XIX, 11. t Luke, xxii, 24 seqq. 

X Matt., XX, 20 seqq. ; Mark, x, 35 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 313 

commanded tliem all to be put to death.* At other 
times he rudely destroyed the illusions of his disciples. 
As they were traveling over the rocky roads north of 
Jerusalem, Jesus walked thoughtfully at the head of 
the group of his companions. All looked upon him 
in silence, with a sentiment of awe, not daring to ques- 
tion him. Already, on various occasions, he had spo- 
ken to them of his future sufferings, and they had 
listened unwillingly.f Jesus finally broke the si- 
lence, and, no longer concealing his presentiments, 
he spoke to them openly of his approaching end.J 
There was great sadness in all the company. The dis- 
ciples were expecting soon to see the sign appear in 
the clouds. The inaugural cry of the " kingdom of 
God ;" " Blessed be he who cometh in the name of the 
Lord," already rang through the throng in joyous ac- 
cents. This bloody perspective disturbed them. At 
each step of the fatal journey, the kingdom of God 
drew near or fled away in the mirage of their dreams. 
As for him, he became confirmed in the thought that 
he was about to die, but that this death would save 
the world,§ the misunderstanding between him and 
his disciples widened every moment. 

It was the custom to come up to Jerusalem some 
days before the Passover, in order to prepare for it, Je- 
sus arrived after the rest, and for a moment his ene- 
mies thought themselves frustrated in their hope of 
seizing him.Tf On the sixth day before the feast (Sat- 
urday the 8th of Nisan, March 28th),** he finally ar- 

• Luke, XIX, 12-27. t Matt. , xvi, 21 seqq. ; Mark, viii, 31 seqq. 

iMatt. , XX, 17 seqq. ; Mark, x, 31 seqq. ; Luke, xviii, 31 seqq. 
Matt.,xxni,39; Luke, xiii, 35. 
Matt. , XX, 28. T John, xi, 56. 

*=* The passover was celebrated on the fourteenth of Nisan. Now, in the year 
83, the first of Nisan corresponded to Saturday, March 21st. 

14 



314 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

rived at Bethany. He stopped, as was his custom, at 
the house of Lazarus, Martha and Marj, or that of Si- 
mon the Leper. They gave him a grand reception. 
There was at the house of Simon the Leper* a dinner 
at which a large number of persons were assembled, 
attracted by the desire to see him, and also to see Laz- 
arus, of whom so many things had been related for 
some days past. Lazarus was seated at a table, and at- 
tracted the attention of all. Martha served accord- 
ing to her custom. f It seems as though they sought 
by an increase of the external manifestations of res- 
pect to overcome the coldness of the public and to 
signalize decidedly. the high dignity of the guest whom 
they were entertaining. Mary, in order to give the 
repast a more festal appearance, entered during the 
dinner, bearing a vase of perfume, which she poured 
upon the feet of Jesus. Then she broke the vase, ac- 
cording to an ancient usage which was to destroy the 
vessels used in serving a stranger of distinction. :j; Fi- 
nally, carrying the manifestations of her worship to 
extremes hitherto unknown, she prostrated herself and 
wiped the feet of her master with her long hair.| 
The whole house was filled with the pleasant odor of 
the perfume, to the great joy of all, except the avari- 
cious Judas of Kerioth. Considering the economical 
habits of the community, it really was prodigality. 
The greedy treasurer calculated at once for how much 
the perfume might have been sold, and what it would 

* Matt., XXVI, 6; Mark, xiv, 3. Cf. Luke, vii, 40, 43-44. 

t It is very common In the East, that a person who is attached to you by a 
bond of affection or of domesticity should go to serve you when you go out to 
dine. 

t I have seen this custom stiU practiced at Sour. 

I We must remember that the feet of the guests were not, as among us, con- 
cealed under the table, but extended level with the body upon the divan or 
triclinium. 



LirfE OF JESUS. 315 

have produced for the poor. This sentiment devoid 
of affection, which seemed to place something else above 
himself, was displeasing to Jesus. He was fond of 
hoDors ; for honors served his purpose and established 
his title as the Son of David. So when they spoke to 
him of the poor, he replied rather sharplj : " the poor 
ye have always with you, but me ye have not al- 
ways." And rising to exaltation, he promised immor- 
tality to the woman who at this critical moment gave 
him a pledge of love.* 

The next day (Sunday, the 9th of N"isan), Jesus went 
down from Bethany to Jerusalem. f When, at a turn 
of the road, upon the summit of the Mount of Olives, 
he saw the city spread out before him, it is said, that 
he wept over it, and addressed to it a last appeal. J At 
the foot of the mountain, not far from the gate, enter- 
ing upon the belt of land near the eastern wall of the 
city, which was called Bethphage, doubtless from the 
fig trees with which it was planted,! he had yet another 
moment of human satisfaction.§ Tlie news of his ar- 
rival had spread abroad. The Galileans who had come 
to the feast were rejoiced, and prepared him a modest 
triumph. They brought him a she ass, followed, as 
usual, by her colt. The Galileans spread their finest 
garments in the way of housings upon this poor beast, 
and made him sit thereon. Others, moreover, spread 
their vestments along the road, and strewed it with 

* Matt., XXVI, 6seqq.; Mark, xiv, 3 seqq.; John, xi, 2; xji, 2 seqfl Comp 
Luke. vn,36 seqq. 

t John, XII. 12. X Luke, xix, 41 seqq. 

1! Mischna, Menachoth, xi, 2; Talm. of Bah. , Sanhedrin, 14 b; PesacMm, 63 b, 91 a; 
Sota, 45 a; Baba mdsia, 85 a. It results from these passages that Bethphage was 
a sort of jmnarium, which extended to the foot of the eastern foundation of the 
temple, aud Avhich also had its own wall of enclosure. The passages Matt., xxi, 
1, Luke, XIX, 29, do not exactly imply that Bethphage wa" a village, as Eusebiua 
and St. Jerome have supposed. 

^ Matt. , XXI, 1 seqq. ; Mark, xi, 1 seqq. : Luke, xix, 29 seqq. ; John, xn, 12 seqq. 



316 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

ffreen bouo^hs. The multitude that went before and 
that followed bearing palms, cried : " Hosanna to the 
son of David. Blessed is he that cometh in the name 
of the Lord !" Some persons even went so far as to 
give him the title of "king of Israel."* " Rabbi, make 
them hold their peace," said the Pharisees to him. 
" If thej should hold their peace, the stones would cry 
out," replied Jesus, and he entered the city. The 
Hierosolymites, who scarcely knew him, asked who he 
was : " This is Jesus the prophet of I^azareth and Gal- 
ilee," was the reply. Jerusalem was a city of about 
fifty thousand souls.f A little event, like the entrance 
of a stranger of celebrity, or the arrival of a band of 
provincials, or a movement of the people in the aven- 
ues of the town, could not fail, under ordinary circum- 
stances, to be soon noised about. But at the time of 
the feasts, the confusion was extreme^ Jerusalem, 
on those days, belonged to strangers. It is, therefore, 
among them that the commotion appears to have been 
greatest. Some proselytes who spoke Greek and who 
had come to the feast, became curious, and desired to 
see Jesus. They applied to his disciples ;|| it is not 
known what resulted from this interview. As for Je- 
sus, he went, according to his custom, to pass the night 
in his dear village of Bethany. § The three following 
days (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday), he went 
down in the same manner to Jerusalem ; after sunset 



» Luke, XIX, 38; John, xii, 13. 

f The figure 120,000, given by Hecateus (in Josephus, Contra Apionem, 1,22), 
appears exaggerated. Cicero speaks of Jerusalem as a paltry town (Ad Atticvm, 
II, IX). The ancient enclosures, whatever system we adopt, could not contain a 
population quadruple the present, which is less than 15,000. See Robinson, Bibl. 
Res. , 1, 421-4^2 (2nd edition) ; Fergusson, Ibpogr. cfJerus. , p. 51; Forster, Syria and 
Palestine, p. 82. 



Jos. , iB. j: , II, XIV, 3. II John, xii, 20 seqq. 

Matt., XXI. 17; Mark, xi, 11. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 317 

he returned either to Bethany or to the farms on the 
western slope of the Mount of Olives, where he had 
many friends.* 

A deep sadness appears, during these last days, to 
have filled the soul of Jesus, ordinarily so cheerful and 
so serene. All the recitals agree, in attributing to 
him, before his arrest, a moment of hesitation and of 
trouble, a kind of anticipated death-agony. According 
to some, he cried out suddenly : " Father, save me 
from this hour."-)- It was believed that at that mo- 
ment, a voice was heard from heaven ; others said that 
an angel came to console hi'm.:j: According to a wide- 
spread version, this took place in the garden of Geth- 
semane. Jesus, it is said, withdrew a stone's throw 
from his sleeping disciples, taking with him only Ce- 
phas and the two sons of Zebedee. Then he prayed 
with his face to the ground. His soul was sad unto 
death; a terrible anguish weighed upon him; but re- 
signation to the divine will triumphed.] This scene, 
by virtue of that instinctive art which presided over 
the compilations of the synoptics, and which often 
makes them obedient to considerations of propriety or 
effect in the arrangements of events, has been assigned 
to the last night of Jesus, and to the moment of his 
arrest. Were this the true version, we could hardly 
understand how John, who must have been the inti- 
mate witness of so moving an episode, should not have 
spoken of it in his very circumstantial account of th 
evening of Thursday.§ All that can be said is, that 

* Matt., XXI, 17-18; Mark, xi, 11-12,19; Luke, xxr, 37-38. 

t John, XII, '27 seqq. We can comprehend how the exaltation of John and his 
exclusive prepossession with the divine character of Jesus may have effaced from 
the recital the circumstances of natural weakness related by the synoptics. 

iLuke; XXII, 43; John, xii, 28-29. 
Matt, XVIII, 36 seqq. , Mark, xiv, 32 seqq. ; Luke, xxii, 89 seqq 
This would be the more incomprehensible since John delights in brisging 



318 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

during his last days, the immense burden of the mis- 
sion he had accepted, weighed cruelly upon Jesus. 
Human nature awoke for a moment. He began per- 
haps to doubt of his work. Terror, hesitation seized 
upon him and threw him into a dejection worse than 
death. The man who has sacrificed repose and the 
natural compensations of life to a great idea, experi- 
ences a moment of sad reflection, when the imao^e of 
death presents itself to him for the first time, and seeka 
to persuade him that all is vanity. Perhaps some one 
of those touching recollections which even the strong- 
est souls preserve, and which at times pierce them like 
the sword, came to him at this moment. Did he recall 
the clear fountains of Galilee where he might have re- 
freshed himself; the vineyard and fig-tree under which 
he might have been seated ; the yonng maidens who 
might perhaps have consented to love him? Did he 
curse his bitter destiny, which had forbidden to him 
the joys conceded to all others? "Did he regret his too 
lofty nature, and, the victim of his own grandeur, did 
he weep because he had not remained a simple artizan 
of Nazareth ? We k-now not. For all these interior 
agitations were evidently a sealed book to his disciples. 
They comprehended nothing, and supplied by artless 
conjectures whatever was obscure to them in the great 
soul of their master. It is certain, at least, that his 
divine nature soon resumed the ascendancy. He might 
still have avoided death ; he would not. The love of 
his work gained the victory. He accepted the draught 
of the cup even unto the lees. From this time, indeed, 
Jesits is agam complete and without a cloud. The 

out those circumstances which are personal to him, or of which he was the sole 
witness (xin, 23 seqq.; xviii, 15 aeqq.; xix, 26 seqq., 35; xx, 2 seqq.; xxi, 20 
Beqq.). 



LIFE OF JESUS. 319 

subtleties of tlie polemic, the credulity of the thau- 
maturgist and the exorcist are forgotten. l!^othing re- 
mains but the incomparable hero of the Passion, the 
founder of the rights of free conscience, the perfect 
model upon which all suffering souls shall meditate for 
strength and consolation. 

The triumph of Bethphage, this audacity of provin- 
cials celebrating the advent of their King-Messiah at 
the gates of Jerusalem, completed the exasperation of 
the Pharisees and the aristocracy of the temple. A 
new council was held on Wednesday, (the 12th of Ni- 
san,) at the house of Joseph Caiaphas.* The immedi- 
ate arrest of Jesus was resolved upon. A great re- 
gard for order and for a conservative policy controlled 
all their measures. The difficulty was to avoid scan- 
dal. As the feast of the Passover, which began that 
year on Friday, was a time of confusion and excite- 
ment, it was resolved to anticipate those days. Jesua 
was popular ;f a mob was apprehended. The arrest 
was therefore fixed for Thursday, the next day. It 
was determined also not to seize him in the temple, 
where he came every day,:|; but to spy out his habits, 
in order to seize him in some secret place. The officers 
of the priests sounded the disciples, hoping to obtain 
the needful information through their weakness or 
through their simplicity. They found what they 
sought in Judas of Kerioth . This wretch, from mo- 
tives impossible to explain, betrayed his Master, gave 
all the necessary indications, and even took upon him- 
self (although such an excess of perfidy is hardly cre- 
dible) to conduct the squad which was to make the 

* Matt., XXVI, 1-5; Mark, xiv, 1-2; Luke, xxii, 1-2. 

t Matt. , XXI, 46. % Matt. , xxvi, 56. 



320 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

arrest. The memory of horror which the folly or the 
wickedness of this man left to the Christian tradition, 
must have led to some exaggeration in this. Judas 
hitherto had been a disciple with the rest ; he had 
even the title of apostle ; he had performed miracles, 
and cast out demons. Legend, which loves strong 
colors, could only admit into the cenaculum eleven 
saints and one reprobate. Reality does not proceed 
with such absolute discriminations. Avarice, which 
the synoptic gospels give as the motive for the crime 
in question, is not sufficient to explain it. It would be 
strange that the man who kept the purse, and who 
knew what he would lose by the death of the chief, 
should exchange the profits of his occupation* for a 
very trifling sum of money. t Might not Judas have 
been wounded in his self-love by the reproof which he 
received at the dinner at Bethany ? Yet this is not 
enough. John would make him a thief and an un- 
believer from the beginning,:]; a view which is entirely 
improbable. We prefer to believe in some feeling 
of jealousy, some intestine dissension. The peculiar 
hatred which John exhibits towards Judas, || confirms 
this hypothesis. Of a heart less pure than the rest, 
Judas may have assumed unconsciously the narrow 
sentiments of his office. By a mutation not uncommon 
in active life, he may have come to set the interests 
of the treasury above the very work it was intended to 
serve. The administrator may have killed the apos- 
tle. The murmur which escaped him at Bethany 
seems to indicate that at times he thought the mas- 
ter cost his spiritual family too dear. Undoubtedly 

* John, XII, 6. t John does not even speak of a payment of money. 

X John, VI, 65; xii, 6. | John, vi, 65, 71-72; xii, 6; xiii, 2, 27 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 821 

this mean economy had caused other collisions in the 
little society. 

Without denying that Judas of Kerioth may have 
contributed to the arrest of his master, we think, 
therefore, that the maledictions with which he is load- 
ed are in some degree unjust. His act was perhaps 
more a blunder than a crime. The conscience of the 
practical man is lively and just, but unstable and illog- 
ical. It cannot resist a sudden impulse. The secret 
societies of the republican party contained much ear- 
nestness and sincerity, and yet informers were very 
numerous among them. A slight offence was enough 
to make a member a traitor. But if the foolish de- 
sire for a few pieces of silver turned the head of poor 
Judas, it does not seem that he lost his moral sense en- 
tirely, since seeing the consequences of his fault, he 
repented,* and, it is said, killed himself. 

Each moment, at this period, becomes awful, and 
has counted more than whole centuries in the history 
of humanity. We have reached Thursday, the 13th 
of I^isan, (April 2d.) On the evening of the next day 
the feast of the Passover commenced by the eating of 
the Paschal lamb. The feast continued through the 
seven following days, during which the unleavened 
bread was eaten. The first and the last of these seven 
days had a peculiar sanctity. The disciples were al- 
ready occupied with preparations for the feast.f As to 
Jesus, we are led to believe that he knew the treache- 
ry of Judas, and that he suspected the fate which 
awaited him. In the evening he took his last supper 
with his disciples. It was not the ritual feast of the 

♦ Matt., XXVII, 3 seqq. 

t Matt., ixvi, 1 seqq.; Mark, siv, 12; Luke, xxii, 7; John, xui, 20. 



322 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Passover, as was afterwards supposed by a mistake of 
one day;* but to tlie primitive Church the supper of 
Thursday was the true Passover, the seal of the new 
covenant. All the disciples referred to it their dear- 
est memories, and a multitude of touching incidents 
which each retained of the master, were accumulated 
upon this repast, which became the corner-stone of 
Christian piety, and the starting-point of the most 
fruitful institutions. 

There is no doubt, indeed, that the tender love 
with which the heart of Jesus was filled for the little 
church that surrounded him, overflowed at this 
hour.f His serene and mighty soul was yet light be- 
neath the weight of the gloomy thoughts which beset 
him. He had a word for each one of his friends. Two 
among them, John and Peter, were the special objects 
of tender marks of attachment . John (at least he 
affirms so) lay upon the divan by the side of Jesus, 
and his head reposed upon the breast of the master. 
Towards the end of the meal the secret which weighed 
upon Jesus' heart almost escaped him : '' Verily, said 
he, I say unto you that one of you shall betray me."J 
This was to those simple men a moment of anguish ; 
they looked at one another, and each questioned him- 
self. Judas was present ; perhaps Jesus, who for 
some time had had reason to distrust him, sought by 
this saying to draw from his looks, or his embarrass- 
ment, a confession of his fault. But the unfaithful 

* This is the arrangement of the synoptics (Matt. , xxvi, 17 seqq. ; Mark, xiv, 12 
seqq.; Luke, xxii, 7 seqq., 15. But John, whose narrative has for this portion a 
preponderating authority, expressly supposes that Jesus died the same day on 
which the lamb was eaten (xiii, 1-2, 29; xviii, 28; xix, 4, 31). The Talmud also 
makes Jesus die on the"eve of the Passover." (Talm. of Bab. , Sanhedrin, 43 a, 67 a). 

t John, XIII, 1 seqq. 

X Matt., XXVI, 21 seqq.; Mark, xiv, 18 seqq.; Luke, xx, 21 seqq.; John, xin, 21 
seqq. ; XXI, 20. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 323 

disciple did not lose his presence of mind ; lie dared 
even, it is said to ask like the rest : " Is it I, Rabbi ?" 

Meantime, the upright and virtuous soul of Peter 
was upon the rack. He made a sign to John to en- 
deavor to learn of whom the master spoke. John, 
who could converse with Jesus without being heard, 
asked him the solution of this enigma. Jesus having 
nothing more than suspicions, would pronounce no 
name ; he told John merely to notice to whom he 
should give the bread he was dipping. At the same 
time, he dipped the bread and offered it to Judas. 
John and Peter alone understood this. Jesus address- 
ed to Judas a few words which contained a bitter re- 
proach, but were not comprehended by the rest. It 
was supposed that Jesus was giving him orders for 
the feast of the morrow, and he went out.* 

At the time, this supper seemed remarkable to no 
one, and apart from the apprehensions which the mas- 
ter imparted to his disciples, who but half understood 
him, nothing extraordinary occurred. Bat after the 
death of Jesus, a signification singularly solemn was 
attached to this evening, and the imagination of be- 
lievers spread over it a hue of soft mysticism. What 
we remember best of a dear friend, is his last days. 
By an inevitable illusion, we lend to the conversa- 
tions that we then had with him a meaning Avhich 
they have received only from death ; we gather into 
a few hours the memories of many years. Most of 
the disciples never saw their master after the supper 
of which we have spoken. It was the farewell ban- 
quet. At this repast, as well as at many others, Je- 

* John, xin, 21 seqq. , which removes the improbability of the narrative of the 
synoptics. 



324 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

BUS practised his mysterious rite of the breaking of 
bread. As it was believed at an early period that this 
supper took place on the day of the Passover, and 
was the Paschal feast, the idea naturally resulted that 
the Eucharist was instituted at this supreme hour. 
Starting from the hypothesis that Jesus knew hefo re- 
hand the precise moment of his death, the disciples 
must have been led to suppose that he reserved for 
his last hours a multitude of important acts. Moreo- 
ver, as one of the fundamental ideas of the first Chris- 
tians was that the death of Jesus was a sacrifice, re- 
placing all those of the ancient Law, the " Last Sup- 
per," which they supposed to have taken place once 
for all on the evening before the Crucifixion, became 
the great sacrifice, the act of foundation of the new 
covenant, the sign of the blood shed for the salva- 
tion of all.* The bread and the wine, taken in con- 
nection with the death itself, were thus the image of 
the new Testament which Jesus had sealed with his 
sufferings, the commemoration of the sacrifice of the 
Christ until his coming. f 

At a very early day this mystery was fixed in a 
brief story of the sacrament, which we possess under 
four quite similar forms. :j: John, so prepossessed with 
eucharistic ideas, || who narrates the last supper with 
so much prolixity, who attaches to it so many circum- 
stances and so much discourse ;§ John, who alone 
among the evangelical narrators, has here the credi- 
bility of an eye witness, knows nothing of this story. 
This is proof that he did not regard the institution of 

* Luke, XXII, 20, f 1 Cor., xi, 26. 

iMatt., XXVI, 26-28; Mark, xi v. 22-24; Luke, xxii, 19-21; ICor.,xi 23-26. 
Ch. VI. § Ch. xm-xvii. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 325 

the Eucharist as a peculiarit}^ of the Last Supper. To 
him, the rite of the Last Supper is the washing of feet. 
It is probable that in certain primitive Christian fami- 
lies, this latter rite obtained an importance which it 
subsequently lost.* Undoubtedly Jesus, under cer- 
tain circumstances, had practised it in order to give 
his disciples a lesson of humility. It was referred to 
the eve of his death, in consequence of the tendency 
to group around the Last Supper all the grand moral 
and ritual commands of Jesus. 

A lofty sentiment of love, concord, charity and mu- 
tual deference animated, moreover, the memories 
which they thought to preserve of the last hours of 
Jesus, t The unity of his Church it is, constituted by 
himself or by his spirit, which is always the soul of the 
symbols and the discourses that Christian tradition 
refers to this sacred hour : " A new commandment I 
give unto you, said he, that ye love one another as I 
have loved you. Bj this shall all men know that ye 
are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. I 
call you not servants ; for the servant knoweth not 
what his lord doeth; but I call you my friends ; for all 
things that I have heard of my Father, I have made 
known unto you. This I command you that ye love 
one another.''^ At this last hour, there were still some 
rivalries, some strnggles for precedence.! Jesus re- 
marked that if he, the master, had been among his 
disciples as their servant, how much the more ought 

* John, XIII, 14-15 Of. Matt. , xx, 26 8eqq. ; Luke, xxii, 26 seqq. 

f John, xiii, 1 seqq. The discourses placed by John in connection with the 
narrative of the Supper cannot be taken as historical. They are full of phrases 
and expressions which are not in the style of the discourses of Jesus, and which, 
on the contrary, enter largely into the habitual language of John. Thus the 
expression " little children" in the vocative (John, xiii, 33) is very frequent in 
the first Epistle of John. It does not appear to have been familiar to Jesus. 

t John, XII, 33-35; xv, 12-17. || Luke, xxii, 24-27. Of. John, xiii, 4 seqq. 



326 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

they to submit themselves one to another. According 
to some, while drinking the wine, he said : "I will not 
drink henceforth of the fruit of the vine until I drink 
it new with you in my Father's kingdom."* Accord- 
ing to others, he promised them very soon a heavenly 
feast at which they should be seated upon thrones by 
his side.f 

It seems that towards the end of the evening the 
presentiments of Jesus took possession of his disciples. 
All felt that a serious danger menaced the master and 
that a crisis was at hand. For a moment Jesus 
thought of taking precautions and spoke of swords. 
There were two in the company. " It is enough," 
said he.J He did not follov/ up that idea; he saw 
plainly that timid provincials would not hold out be- 
fore the armed force of the great powers of Jerusalem. 
Cephas, full of courage and feeling sure of himself, 
swore that he would go with him to prison or to death. 
Jesus, with his usual penetration, expressed some 
doubts. According to one tradition, which came 
probably from Paul himself, Jesus referred him to the 
crowing of the cock.|| All, like Ceplias, swore that 
they would not deny him. 

* Matt., XXVI, 29; Mark, xrv, 25; Luke, xxii, 18. 
j Luke, XXII, 29-30. | Luke, xxix, 36-38. 

I) Matt. , XXVI, 31 seqq. ; Mark, xiv, 29 seqq. ; Luke, xxii, 33 seqq. ; John, ZIU, 
36 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 327 



CHAPTEK XXIY. 

AEEEST AND TKIAL OP JESUS. 

!NiGHT had completely fallen"^ when they left the 
room.f Jesus, according to his habit, crossed the val- 
ley of the Cedron, and repaired accompanied by his 
disciples, to the garden of Gethsemane, at the foot of 
the mount of Olives.J Predominating over his friends 
by his immense superiority, he watched and prayed. 
They were sleeping beside him, when suddenly a band 
of men presented themselves by the light of their 
torches. They were sergeauts of the temple, armed 
with clubs, a species of police which had been left to 
the priests ; they were supported by a detachment of 
Roman soldiers with their swords ; the order of arrest 
emanated from the high-priest and the Sanhedrin.| 
Judas, knowing the habits of Jesus, had indicated this 
place as that in which they might most easily surprise 
him. Judas, according to the unanimous tradition of 
the primitive times, himself accompanied the squad§, 

* John,xin,30. 

t The circumstance of a hymn related by Matt., XXVI, 30, and Mark, xiv, 26, 
comes from the opmion held by these two Evangelists that the last Supper of Je- 
sus was the paschal feast. Before and after the paschal feast, psalms are sung. 
Talm. of Bab., PesacUm, cap. ix, 5 hal. 3 et fol. 118 a, etc. 

t Matt, XXVI, 36; Mark, xiv, 32; Luke, xxii, 39; John xviii, 1-2. 

11 Matt., XXVI, 47; Mark, xiv, 43; John, xviii, 3, 12. 

§ Matt., XXVI, 47; Mark, xiv, 43; Luke, xxii, 47; John, xviii, 3; Acts, i, 16. 



328 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

and even, according to some,* was so detestable as to 
make a kiss the sign of his treachery. However this 
may be, it is certain that the disciples made a begin- 
ning of resistance.:]: One of them (Peter, according to 
the eye witnesses^) drew his sword and wounded one 
of the servants of the high-priest named Malek in the 
ear. Jesus checked this first impulse. He gave him- 
self up to the soldiers. Weak and incapable of acting 
with success, especially against authorities which had 
so great prestige, the disciples took to flight and dis- 
persed. Peter and John kept within sight of their 
master. Another unknown young man followed him, 
dressed in a thin garment. An attempt was made to 
arrest him ; but the young man fled, leaving his tunic 
in the hands of the officers.] 

The course which the priests had resolved to follow 
against Jesus, was strictly conformable to the estab- 
lished law. The procedure against the " seducer " 
{mesith\ who seeks to sully the purity of the faith, is 
laid down in the Talmud with details the shameless 
simplicity of which causes a smile. In it judicial 
ambuscade is constituted an essential portion of the 
criminal process. "When a man is accused of " seduc- 
tion," two witnesses are concealed behind a partition ; 
and it is arranged to bring the accused into an adjoin- 
ing room, in which he can be heard by the two wit- 
nesses without himself perceiving them. Two candles 
are lighted near him, that it may be fully established 
that the witnesses '' see him."§ Then he is made to 
repeat his blasphemy. He is urged to retract. — 

* This is the tradition of the synoptics. In the narrative of John, Jesus an- 
nounces himself. f The two traditions accord upon this point. 

X John, XVIII, ]0. II Mark, xiv, 51-52. 

§ In criminal matters, only eye-witnesses were admitted. Miechna, Sanhe- 
drin, IV, 5. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 329 

If he persists, the witnesses who have heard him, bring 
him to the tribunal, and he is stoned. The Talmud 
adds that this course was adopted in the proceeding 
against Jesus, that he was condemned upon the testi- 
mony of two witnesses who had been concealed, that 
" seduction " is, moreover, the only crime for which 
witnesses are thus prepared.* 

The disciples of Jesus apprise us, indeed, that the 
crime charged against their master was " seduction,"f 
and, with the exception of certain minutiae, the fruit 
of the rabbinical imagination, the narrative of the 
evangelists corresponds word for word to the proceed- 
ing described by the Talmud. The plan of the ene- 
mies of Jesus was to convici him, by examination of 
witnesses and by his own confessions, of blasphemy 
and of an outrage upon the Mosaic religion, to condemn 
him to death according to the law, and then to make 
Pilate approve the sentence. The sacerdotal author- 
ity, as we have already seen, resided in fact entirely 
in the hands of Hanan. The order of arrest came 
probably from him. To the house of this powerful 
personage Jesus was first taken. :]: Hanan questioned 
him as to his doctrines and his disciples. Jesus re- 
fused with a just pride to enter into long explanations. 
He referred them to his teaching, which had been 
public ; he declared that he had never had any secret 
doctrine ; he invited the ex-high-priest to question 
those who had heard him. This response was perfectly 
natural ; but the exaggerated respect with which the 

* Talm. of Jerus., Scmhedrin, xiv, 16; Talm. of Bab., same treatise, 43 a, 67 a. 
Cf. Schabbath, 104 b. f Matt., xxviii, 63; John, vii, 12, 47. 

X John, XVIII , 13 seqq. This circumstance , which is found only in John, is the 
strongest proof of the historic value of the fourth Gospel. 



330 ORIGINS OP CHRISTIANITY. 

aged pontiff was surrounded made it seem audacious ; 
one of the bystanders replied, it is said with a cuff. 

Peter and John had followed their master to Ha- 
nan's house. John, who was known in the house, was 
admitted without difficulty ; but Peter was stopped at 
the entrance, and John was obliged to beg the por- 
tress to let him pass. The night was cold. Peter re- 
mained in the antechamber, and approached a brazier 
about which the servants were warming themselves. 
He was quickly recognized as a disciple of the accused. 
The wretched man, betrayed by his Galilean ac- 
cent, pressed with questions by the servants, one of 
whom was a relative of Malek and had seen him in 
Gethsemane, denied three times that he had ever had 
the least connection with Jesus. He thought that Je- 
sus could not hear him, and did not realize that this 
cowardly dissimulation was utterly unscrupulous. But 
his better nature quickly revealed to him the fault 
which he had committed. A fortuitous circumstance, 
the crowing of the cock, recalled to him the words 
which Jesus had spoken. Pricked to the heart, be 
went out and wept bitterly.* 

Hanan, although the real author of the judicial 
murder which was to be committed, had no power to 
pronounce sentence on Jesus ; he sent him to his son- 
in-law Caiaphas, who wore the official title. This man, 
the blind instrument of his father-in-law, ratified all as 
a matter of course. The Sanhedrin was assembled at 
his house.f The examination commenced ; several 
witnesses, prepared in advance according to the inqui- 
sitorial process set forth in the Talmud, appeared be- 

* Matt. , XXVI, 69 seqq. ; Mark, xiv, 66 seqq. ; Luke, xxii, 54 seqq. ; John, xviii, 
15 seqq. ; 25 seqq. f ^att , xvi, 57; Mark, xiy, 53; Luke, xxii, 66. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 331 

fore the tribunal. The fatal words which Jesus had 
really pronounced : '*I am able to destroy the temple 
of God, and to build it in three days," were cited by 
two witnesses. To blaspheme the temple of God was, 
according to the Jewish law, to blaspheme God him- 
self* Jesus preserved silence and refused to explain 
the incriminated words. According to one narrative, 
the high priest then adjured him to say whether he 
was the Messiah. Jesus confessed it and proclaimed 
before the assembly the speedy coming of his heavenly 
kingdom.f The courage of Jesus determined upon 
death, does not call for this. It is most probable that 
here, as at Hanan's house, he held his peace. This 
was in general during these last hours his rule of con- 
duct. The sentence was drawn up. Pretexts only 
were sought. Jesus knew it, and did not undertake a 
useless defense. From the stand-point of orthodox 
Judaism he was indeed a blasphemer, a destroyer of 
the established worship ; now these crimes were pun- 
ished with death by the law.;]: With one voice the as- 
sembly declared him guilty of capital crime. The 
members of the council who were secretly favorable 
to him were absent or did not vote.|| The frivolity 
common to long established aristocracies prevented 
the judges from reflecting at length upon the conse- 
quences of the sentence which they gave. Human 
life was then sacrificed very lightly ; undoubtedly 
the members of the Sanhedrin did not dream that 
their children were to render account to an angry pos- 
terity for the sentence pronounced with such careless 
contempt. 

* Matt. , XXIII, 16 seqq. 

+ Matt. , XXVI, 64; Mark, xiv, 62; Luke, xxii, 69. John knows nothing of this 
Bcene. tiim<.,xxiv,14 8eqq.;Z>eM<.,xni, 1 seqq. || Luke, xxiii, 50-61. 



352 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

The Sanhedrin had no right to execute a sentence 
of death,* But, in the confusion of powers then 
reigning in Judea, Jesus was none the less, from that 
hour, a condemned man. He remained during the 
rest of the night exposed to the ill treatment of a 
base varletrj, who spared him no affront.f 

In the morning, the chief priests and the elders as- 
sembled anew4 The question was, how to make Pi- 
late ratify the sentence pronounced by the Sanhe- 
drin, which, since the occupation of the Komans, was 
insufficient. The procurator was not invested like the 
imperial legate with the power of life and death. But 
Jesus was not a Roman citizen ; the authorization of 
the governor sufficed to allow the sentence pronounced 
against him to take its course. As always happens 
when a political people subject a nation in which the 
civil and religious law are one, the Komans had been 
led to give a sort of official support to the Jewish 
law. The Eoman law did not apply to the Jews. 
They remained under the canonical law which we find 
in the Talmud, in the same manner as the Algerian 
Arabs are yet ruled by the code of Islam. Although 
neutrals in religion, the Romans thus sanctioned very 
often penalties for religious olfenses. The situation 
was almost that of the holy cities of India under the 
English rule, or still more like what the condition of 
Damascus would be on the morning after the con- 
quest of Syria by a European nation. Josephus 
claimed, (but it is indeed doubtful,) that if a Roman 
passed beyond the columns which bore inscriptions 

I * John, XVIII, 31; Jos., ^inf., XX, ix, 1. 

+ Matt., XXVI, 67-68; Mark, xiv, 65; Luke, xxii, 63-65, 
, X Matt., xxvii, 1; Mark, xv, 1; Luke, xxii, 66; xxiii, 1; John, xvni, 28. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 333 

forbidding pagans to go farther, the Komans them- 
selves delivered him to the Jews to be put to death.* 

The officers of the priests, therefore, bound Jesus and 
led him to the prsetorium, which was the former pal- 
ace of Herodjf adjoining the Antonia tower.:j; It 
was the morning of the day when thej were to eat 
the paschal lamb, (Friday, the 14:th of Kisau, April 
3rd.) The Jews by entering the prsetorium would be 
defiled, and rendered unable to participate in the sa- 
cred feast. They remained without. [ Pilate, advised 
of their presence, mounted the hima,^ or tribunal situ- 
ated in the open air,Tr at the spot called Gabhatha, 
or in Greek Lithostrotos^ because of the tesselated 
pavement which covered the ground. Hardly was he 
informed of the accusation before he expressed his 
displeasure at being concerned in the matter.** Then 
he shut himself up in the praetorium with Jesus. 
There took place a conversation the precise details of 
which have escaped us, no witness being able to re- 
port it to the disciples, but the purport of which ap- 
pears to have been well divined by John. His narra- 
tive indeed is in perfect accord with what history in- 
forms us of the reciprocal situation of the two interlo- 
cutors. 

The procurator Pontius, surnamed Pilatus, doubt- 
less from i\iQ j>ilumj or javelin of honor with which he 
himself or one of his ancestors had been decorated,ff 

* 3os.\Ant , XV, XI, 5; 5. J., VI, ii, 4. 

iPhilo, Legatio ad Caium, § 38. Jos B. J., 11, xiv. 8. 
On the spot where now is the seraglio of the Pasha of Jerusalem. 
John, XVIII, 28. j 

^ The Greek word (Srjiict had passed into Syro-Chaldaic. 
^ Jos., 5. J., II, IX, 3; XIV, 8; Matt, xxvii, 27; John, xviii, 33. 
** John, xviii, 29. 

tt Virg., j!En.,Xll, 121; Martial, Epigr., 1, xxxiii;X, xlvii; Plutarch, Xifc«jf 
' 29. Compare the Aaitoi>ura, military decoration, Orelli and '" 



334 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

had not had hitherto any relation with the infant sect. 
Indifferent to the internal quarrels of the Jews, he 
saw iu all these movements of sectaries nothing more 
than the effects of intemperate imaginations or of dis* 
ordered wits. In general, he did not love the Jews. 
But the Jews detested him still more ; they thought 
him severe, contemptuous and passionate ; thej ac- 
cused him of improbable crimes.* The center of a 
great popular fermentation, Jerusalem was a very se- 
ditious city, and to a stranger an unendurable place of 
residence. The zealots imputed to the new procura- 
tor a fixed design to abolish the Jewish law.f Their 
narrow fanaticism, their religious hatreds were revolt- 
ing to this broad idea of justice and civil government, 
which the humblest Roman citizen carried with him 
everywhere. All the acts of Pilate which are known 
to us show him as a good administrator. :j: In the first 
days of his rule he had had difficulties with those un- 
der his administration which he had settled in a very 
brutal manner, but in which it seems that he was 
substantially right. The Jews must have appeared to 
him a very backward race; he judged them undoubt- 
edly as a liberal prefect formerly judged the Bas-Bre- 
tons, revolting for a new road, or for the establish- 
ment of a school. In his best projects for the good of 
the country, notably in all that pertained to public 
works, he had encountered the Law as an insuperable 
obstacle. The Law restricted life to such an extent 
that it opposed all change and all amelioration. Ro- 
man constructions, even tliose most useful, were to 

Inscr. lot. , Nos. 3,574, 6,852, etc. Pilatus is, in this hypothesis, a word of the same 
form as Ibrquatm. 

* Philo, Leg. ad Caium, § 38. 

% Jos., Ant. , XVIIl, in, 1, init. f Jos., Ant , XVIII, ii-nr. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 335 

the zealous Jews an object of great antipathy.* Two 
votive shields, with inscriptions, which he liad caused 
to be placed opposite his residence, near the sacred 
enclosare, provoked a yet more violent storm. f Pilate 
at first paid little attention to these susceptibilities; he 
became thus engaged in repressing bloody outbreaks.^ 
which led to his removal. || The experience of so ma- 
ny conflicts had rendered him very prudent in his 
dealings with an intractable people, who avenged 
themselves on their masters by compelling them to 
use against them execrable severities. With extreme 
displeasure the procurator saw himself led in this new 
matter to act a cruel part for a law which he hated. § 
He knew that religious fanaticism, when it has ob- 
tained from civil governments some deed of violence, 
is straightway the first to throve upon them the respon- 
sibility, and almost to accuse them of it. Supreme in- 
justice ; for the real criminal, in such a case, is the 
instigator ! 

Pilate V70uld, therefore, have preferred to save Je- 
sus. Perhaps the calm and dignified attitude of the 
accused made some impression upon him. According 
to one tradition,!" Jesus found a support in the wife of 
the procurator herself. She might have seen the gen- 
tle Galilean from some window of the palace, looking 
upon the courts of the temple. Perhaps she saw him 
again in a dream, and the blood of this beautiful 
young man, which was about to be shed, gave her the 
nightmare. So much is certain, that Jesus found Pi- 
late predisposed in his favor. The governor questioned 

• Talm. of Bab. , Schabbath, 33 b. t PhJlo, Leg. ad Caium, § 38- 

iJo8.,.4n^.,XVTII, III, 1 and 2; Bell. Jud., II, ix,2seqq.-, Luke, xni,l. 
Jo8., ^^^^, XVIII, IV, 1-2. ^ John, xviii, 36. 

Matt.,xxvii,19. 



336 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

him with kindness, and with the intention of seeking 
all means to set him free. 

The title of " King of the Jews," which Jesus had 
never given himself, but which, his enemies presented 
as the sum of his acts and pretentions, was naturally 
that by which thej could excite the umbrage of the 
Homan authority. It was on this charge, as seditious 
and guilty of crime against the State, that they under- 
took to accuse him. Nothing was more unjust; for 
Jesus had always recognized the Roman empire as the 
established power. But conservative religious parties 
are not accustomed to recoil at the utterance of calum- 
ny. They deduced in spite of him all the consequen- 
ces of his doctrine ; they transformed him into a disci- 
ple of Juda the Gaulonite ; they feigned that he op- 
posed the payment of tribute to Csesar.* Pilate 
asked him if he were really the king of the Jews.f Je- 
sus dissembled nothing of his thought. But the great 
ambiguity which had created his power, and which 
after his death was to constitute his royalty, did not 
avail him now. An idealist, that is, making no dis- 
tinction between spirit and matter, his mouth armed 
with his two-edged sword, according to the image of the 
Apocalypse, Jesus never completely reassured the pow- 
ers of the earth. If we may believe John, he avowed 
his royalty, but pronounced at the same time this pro- 
found sentence : " My kingdom is not of this world." 
Then he explained the nature of his royalty, all being 
gummed up in the possession and proclamation of the 
truth. Pilate comprehended nothing of this superior 
idealism. :j: Jesus appeared to him doubtless an inof- 

• Luke, XXIII, 2, 5. 

+ Matt., xxTii, 11; Mark, xv, 2; Luke, xxiii, 3; John, xviii, 33. 

I John, XYni,38. 



LIFE OF JESUS. S37 

fensive dreamer. The total lack of religious and phi- 
losophical proselytism among the Romans of that 
epoch made them look upon devotion to truth as a 
cliimera. These discussions wearied them, and ap- 
peared to them devoid of sense. ITot seeing how 
djingerous to the empire was the leaven concealed in 
these new speculations, they had no reason to employ 
violence against them. All their displeasure fell upon 
those who came to ask them to administer punishments 
for empty subtleties. Twenty years later Gallic still fol- 
lowed the same line of conduct with the Jews.* Until the 
destruction of Jerusalem, the administrative rule of the 
E-omans was to remain completely indifferent to these 
quarrels of sectaries.f 

One expedient suggested itself to the mind of the 
governor to reconcile his own feelings with the de- 
mands of the fanatical people whose pressure he had 
already so many times experienced. It was the cus- 
tom at the feast of the Passover to deliver to the peo- 
ple a prisoner. Pilate, knowing that Jesus had been 
arrested only in consequence of the jealousy of the 
priests,^ endeavored to give him the benefit of this 
custom. He appeared anew upon the hima^ and pro- 
posed to the multitude to release '* the king of the 
Jews." The proposition made in these terms had a 
certain character of liberality, and, at the same time, 
of irony. The priests saw its danger. They acted 
promptly,! and to defeat the proposition of Pilate, they 

* Acts, xvln, 14-15. 

t Tacitus {Arm. , kv, 44) presents the death of Jesus as a political execution by 
I'ontius rilate. But, at the time when Tacitus wrote, the Roman policy to- 
wards the Christians had changed; they were considered guilty of conspiracy 
against the State . It was natural that the Latin historian should believe that 
J*ilate. in executing Jesus, had acted from considerations of pabLic security. 
Josephus is much more exact {Ant.., XVIII, iii, 3). 

t Mark, XV, 10. 

J Matt., XXVII, 20; Mark, xv, 11. 

16 



338 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

suggested to the multitude the name of a prisoner who 
enjoyed great popularity in Jerusalem. By a singular 
chance, he also was called Jesus,* and bore the sur- 
name of Bar- Abba or Bar-Kabban.f This was a per- 
sonage well known ;:[: he had been arrested for a riot 
accompanied with murder.] A general clamor arose: 
" ]N; ot this one ; but Jesus Bar-Kabban." Pilate was 
obliged to give up Jesus Bar-Rabban. 

His embarrassment increased. He feared lest too 
much indulgence for a prisoner to whom was given the 
title of " king of the Jews," should compromise him. 
Fanaticism, moreover, leads all powers to treat with it. 
Pilate thought himself obliged to make some conces- 
sion ; but stiil hesitating at bloodshed to satisfy people 
whom he detested, he endeavored to give the matter 
a ridiculous turn. Professing to laugh at the pompous 
title given to Jesus, he caused him to be whipped,§ 
Flaggellation was the ordinary preliminary of cruci- 
fixion. T" Perhaps Pilate wished to lead them to believe 
that that sentence was already pronounced, while yet 
hoping that the preliminary punishment would sufiice. 
Then followed, according to all the narratives, a revolting 
scene. Soldiers put upon his body a red gown, a crown 
woven of thorn branches upon his head, and a reed in 
his hand. Thus covered, he was led out upon the hima^ 
before the people. The soldiers defiled in front of him, 
slapped him in the face each in turn, and, kneeling, said : 
" Hail, king of the Jews !"** Others, it is said, spit 

* The name of Jesus has disappeared in most of the manuscripts. This read- 
ing has, nevertheless, very strong authority. 

? Matt., XXVII, 16. X Cf St. Jerome, In Matt, xxvii, 16. 

II Mark, XV, 7; Luke, xxxii, 19. John (xviii, 40), who makes him a robber, 
appears here much less accurate than Mark. 

(j Matt., xxvii, 20; Mark, xv, 16; John, xix, 1. 

\ Jos., B. J, 11, XIV, 9; V, XI, 1; VII, vi, 4; Livy. XXXni, 36; Quintus Cur- 
tius, VII,xi,28. 

**Matt., XXVII, 27 seqq.jMark, xv, 16 seqq. ; Luke,xxiii, 11; John, xix, 2 seqq 



LIFE OF JESUS. 339 

upon him and struck him upon the head with the reed. 
It is difficult to understand how Roman gravity should 
have lent itself to acts so shameful. It is true that 
Pilate, in his capacity of procurator, had scarcely any 
but auxiliary troops under his orders.* Eoman citi- 
zens, like the legionaries, would not have descended 
to such indignities. 

Did Pilate think by this parade to cover up his re- 
sponsibility ? Did he hope to turn aside the blow 
wliich menaced Jesus by according something to the 
hatred of the Jews.f and by substituting for the 
tragic termination a grotesque ending, from which it 
would seem to result that the matter merited no other 
issue ? If such were his idea, he had no success. The 
tumult increased, and became a real sedition. Cries 
of " Let him be crucified ! let him be crucified !" re- 
sounded on all sides. The priests, assuming a more 
and more exacting tone, declared the Law in peril, if 
the seducer were not punished with death. ;[: Pilate 
saw clearly that, to save Jesus, it would be necessary 
to quell a bloody riot. Nevertheless, he still endeav- 
ored to gain time. He entered the praetorium again, 
and informed himself of what country Jesus was, seek- 
ing some pretext for denying his jurisdiction.! Ac- 
cording to one tradition, he even sent Jesus to Anti- 
pater, who, it is said, was then at Jerusalem. § Jesus 

* See Tnscript. rom. de L^Algerie, No. 5, fragm. B. 

+ Luke, xxn, 16, 22 J John, xix, 7. 

I John, XIX, 9. Of. Luke, xxni, 6 seqq. 

^ It is probable that this is a first attempt at a " Harmony of the Gospels." 
Luke mu£t have had before his eyes a narrative in which the death of Jesus was 
erroneously attributed to Herod. In order not to sacrifice that version entirely, 
he put the two traditions one after the other, the more as he perhaps knew 
vaguely, that Jesus (as John informs us) appeared before three authorities. In 
many other cases, Luke seems to have some distant notion of the facta 
which are peculiar to John's narration. Moreover, the third gospel contains in 
regard to the history of the crucifixion, a series of additions which the author 
appears to have borrowed from a more recent document, in which an arrange- 
ment, with a view to edification was perceptible. 



340 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

lent himself little to these kindly efforts ; he preserved, 
as at the house of Caiaphas, a grave and dignified si- 
lence, which astonished Pilate. The ciies without be- 
came more and more threatening. They already de- 
nounced the lack of zeal of the functionary who fa- 
vored an enemy of Caesar. The greatest adversaries 
of the Roman domination were transformed into legal 
subjects of Tiberias, in order to gain the right to ac- 
cuse the too tolerant procurator of high treason. '' There 
is no king here," said they, " but the emperor ; whoso- 
ever makes himself king, puts himself in opposition 
with the emperor. If the governor acquits the man, 
he is not the emperor's friend."* The feeble Pilate 
faltered ; he read in advance the report that his ene- 
mies would send to Rome, in which they would accuse 
him of having sustained a rival of Tiberius. Already, 
in the affair of the votive shields,f the Jews had writ- 
ten to the emperor, and had been sustained. He 
feared for his position. By a condescension which was 
to deliver his name to the scourges of history, he yielded, 
casting, it is said, upon the Jews all responsibility for 
what should follow. The latter, according to the Chris- 
tians, accepted it fully, crying : " His blood be on us 
and on our children I":]: 

Were these words really pronounced? We may 
doubt it. But they are the expression of a deep his- 
torical truth. Considering the position which the Ro- 
mans had assumed in Judea, Pilate could hardly have 
done other than he did. How many sentences of 
death, dictated by religious intolerance, have forced 
the hand of the civil power! The king of Spain who, 

* John, XIX, 12. 15. Of. Luke, xxiri, 2 To appreciate the exactitude of the 
coloring of this scene in the Evangeliata, see Philo, Leg. ad Caium, § 33. 
t See above, p. 335. t ^att., xxvii, 24-26. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 341 

to please a fanatical clergy, gave up to butchery hun- 
dreds of his subjects, was more blameable than Pilate ; 
for he represented a more complete power than was 
yet established at Jerusalem by the Romans. When 
the civil power becomes a persecutor or an inter- 
meddler, at the solicitation of the priest, it proves its 
weakness. But let that government which in this re- 
gard is without sin, cast the first stone at Pilate. The 
" secular arm," behind which clerical cruelty shelters 
itself, is not the criminal. JS'one can say that he has a 
horror of blood, when he causes it to be shed by his 
servants. 

It was, therefore, neither Tiberius nor Pilate who 
condemned Jesus. It was tlie old Jewish party ; it 
was the Mosaic law. According to our modern ideas, 
there is no transmission of moral demerit from father 
to son ; each must account to human as well as to di- 
vine justice only for what he himself has done. Every 
Jew, consequently, who in our day still suffers for the 
murder of Jesus, has a right to complain ; for perhaps 
he would have been a Simon the Cyrenean ; perhaps 
at least he had not been with those who cried : " Cru- 
cify him !" But nations have their responsibility as 
well as individuals. Now, if ever crime was the crime 
of a nation, it was the execution of Jesus. This exe- 
cution was ''legal," in the sense that its first cause was 
a law which was the very soul of the nation. Tlie 
Mosaic law, in its modern form, it is true, but yet its 
accepted form, pronounced the sentence of death against 
every attempt to change the established w^orship. Now 
Jesus, without any doubt, attacked this worship, and 
aspired to destroy it. The Jews said to Pilate, with 
simple and true frankness : " We have a Law, and by 



342 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

cur Law lie ought to die ; because he made himself 
the Son of God."* The law was detestable ; but it 
was the law of an ancient ferocity, and the hero who 
offered himself to abrogate it must first of all suffer it. 
Alas, that more than eighteen hundred years must pass 
away before the blood which he is now to shed shall 
bear its fruits I In his name, for centuries, the tortures 
of death shall be inflicted upon thinkers as noble as he. 
To-day even, in countrieb which call therasfelves Chris- 
tian, penalties are imposed for religious delinquencies. 
Jesus is not responsible for these mutations. He could 
not foresee that any peojDle, with disordered imagina- 
tion, would one day conceive him a frightful Moloch, 
greedy for burning flesh. Christianity has been intol- 
erant ; but intolerance is not a trait essentially Chris- 
tian. It is a Jewish trait, in this sense that Judaism 
built up for the first time the theory of the absolute 
into a religion, and established the principle that every 
innovator, even when he brings miracles to the sup- 
port of his doctrine, ought to be received with blows, 
and be stoned by the whole world, without a hearing.f 
Certainly, the pagan world had also its religious vio- 
lence. But if it had had that law, how would it have 
become Christian ? The Pentateuch was thus the first 
code of religious terror in the world. Judaism has 
given the example of an immutable dogma, armed 
with the sword. If, instead of pursuing the Jews with 
a blind hatred, Christianity had abolished the regim 
^vhibh slew its founder, how much more consistent 
would it have been, how much better it would have 
deserved of mankind 1 

» John, XIX, 7. t -Deirf., xm, 1 seqq. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 343 



CHAPTEK XXY. 



THB DEATH OP JESUS. 



Although the real motive of the execution of Jesus 
was wholly religious, his enemies had succeeded, at the 
prsetorium, in presenting him as guilty of treason ; 
they "would not have obtained from the skeptical Pi- 
late a condemnation for cause of heterodoxy. Follow- 
ing out this idea, the priests, through the multitude, 
demanded the execution of Jesus by the cross. Cru- 
cifixion was not of Jewish origin ; had the condemna- 
tion of Jesus been purely Mosaic, he would have been 
stoned. The cross was a Roman punishment, reserved 
for slaves and those cases in which it was desired to 
add to death the aggravation of ignominy. In apply- 
ing it to Jesus, he was treated like highway-robbers, 
brigands, bandits, or those enemies of an inferior class 
to whom the Romans did not accord the honor of 
death by the sword.* It was the chimerical " king 
of the Jews," not the heterodox dogmatist, who was 
punished. In consequence of the same idea, the exe- 
cution was of necessity abandoned to the Romans. We 

* Joa., Ant., XX, lie. 1. The Talmud, which represents the condemnation of 
Jesne as wholly religious, declares, indeed, that he was stoned, or at least that, 
after having been suspended, he was stoned, as often happened (Mischna, San- 
hedrin, vi, 4). Talm. of Jerus.. Sanhedrin, xiv, 16; Talm. of Bab., same treatise 
48 a, 67 a. 



344 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

know that, among the Romans, soldiers, slaughter be- 
ing their occupation, performed the office of execu- 
tioners. Jesus was therefore delivered to a cohort of 
auxiliary troops, and all the horror of the tortures in- 
troduced by the cruel customs of the new conquerors 
was unfolded before him. It was about noon.* He 
was dressed in his clothes which they had taken off to 
parade him before the people, and as the cohort had 
already in reserve two thieves to be executed, they put 
the three prisoners together, and the cortege took up 
its march for the place of execution. 

This place was a spot called Golgotha, situated out- 
side of Jerusalem, but near the walls of the city.f The 
name Golgotha signifies skull ; it corresponds, it seems, 
to our word Ghaumont [Bald mount] and probably 
designates a smooth hill, having the form of a bald 
skull. We know not with exactitude the situation of 
this hill. It was surely to the north or north-west of 
the city, in the high rolling plain which is bounded by 
the walls and the two valleys of Cedron and Hinnom,:|: 
a miserable region, made still more melancholy by 
the disagreeable incidents of its proximity to a great 
city. It is difficult to place Golgotha on the precise 
spot where, since Constantino, all Christendom has re- 
vered it. I This spot is too near the interior of the city, 

* John, XIX, 14. According to Mark, xv, 25, it could hardly have been after 
8 o'clock in the morning, since, according to that Evangelist, Jesus was crucified 
at nine o'clock. 

f Matt., XXVII, 33; Mark, xv, 22; John, xix, 20; Heb., xiii, 12. 

\ Golgotha, indeed, seems to have some relation to the hill of Gareb and the 
locality of Goath, mentioned in Jeremiah, xxxi, 39. Now, these two places ap- 
pear to have been to the northwest of the city. I should incline to place the 
ppot where Jesus was crucified near to the extreme angle which the existing wall 
makes towards the west, or, perhaps, on the mounds which overlook the valley of 
Hinnom, above Birket-Mamilla. 

I The proofs by which it has been attempted to show that the Holy Sepulchre 
has been displaced since Constautine, lack force. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 345 

and we are inclined to believe that in the time of Je- 
sus it was comprised within the circuit of the walls.* 

He who was condemned to crucifixion had himself 
to bear the instrument of his torture. f But Jesus, 
weaker than his two companions, could not bear his. 
The squad met a certain Simon of Cyrene, who was 
returning from the country, and the soldiers, with the 
rough procedure of a foreign garrison, forced him to 
bear the fatal tree. Perhaps thej exercised in this a 
recognized right of impressment, Romans not being 
able to cumber themselves with the infamous wood. 
It seems that afterwards Simon belonged to the Chris- 
tian community. His two sons, Alexander and Ru- 
fus,:j: were well known in it. He related perhaps 
more than one circumstance which he had witnessed. 
No disciple was at this time near Jesus.] 

* M. de Vogue has discovered, 84 yards east of the traditional site of Calvary, 
a piece of Judaic wall analogous to that of Hebron, which, if it belongs to the 
inclosure of the time of Jesus, would leave this traditional site outside of the 
city. The existence of a sepulchral cave (that which is called the " Tomb of Jo- 
seph of Arimathea") under the wall of the cupola of the Holy Sepulchre would 
lead also to the supposition that this place was without the walls. Two histori- 
cal considerations, one of which is strong, can, moreover, be invoked in favor of 
the tradition. The first is, that it would have been singular that those who, un- 
der Constantine, sought to fix the evangelical topography, should not have been 
stopped by the objection which results from John, xix, lO, and Heb., xiii, 12. 
How, if free in their choice, could they have wantonly exposed themselves to so 
grave a difficulity ? The second consideration is. that they had, to guide them, 
in the time of Constantine, the ruins of an edifice, the temple of Venus upon 
Golgotha, built by Hadrian. We are therefore at times forced to believe that the 
work of the topographical devotees of the time of Constantine was serious, that 
they sought indications, and that, although they did not reject certain pious 
frauds, they were guided by analogies. Had they followed a vain caprice only, 
they would have placed Golgotha at a more commanding spot, at the summit of 
some one of the mounds near Jerusalem, in order to satisfy the Christian imagi- 
nation, which at an early day insisted that the death of Christ took place upon a 
mountain. But the difficulty of enclosures is grave. Add that the erection of 
the temple of Venus upon Golgotha proves very little. Eusebius ( Vita Const. , 
III, 26), Socrates {H. E., 1. 17), Sozomen {H. E., II, 1), and St. Jerome (Epist., 
xLix, ad Paulin.) , say indeed that there was a sanctuary of Venus upon the site 
which they believed to be that of the holy sepulchre; but it is not certain : first, 
tiiat Hadrian built it; second, that he built it upon a spot which was called in his 
time 'Golgotha;" third,that he had the intention of building it at the place 
where Jesus suffered death. 

t Plutarch, De sera num. vind., 19; Artemidorus, Onirocrit, ii, 56, 

t Mark, XV, 21. 

I The circumstance, iwfec, XXIII, 27-31, is one of those in which we perceive 
the work of a pious and tender imagination. The words which are here attribu- 
ted to Jesus could have been written only after the siege of Jerusalem. 

IS" 



346 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

They finally reached the place of execution. Accord- 
ing to Jewish usage, the victims were offered a highly 
spiced wine, an intoxicating drink, which from a sen- 
timent of pity was given to the sufferer to stupify 
him.* It seems that the women of Jerusalem them- 
selves often brought to the unfortunates who were led 
out to torture this wine of the dying ; when none of 
them came it was bought at the expense of the public 
treasury.f Jesus, after having touched the cup to his 
lips, refused to drink.:]: This sad solace of common 
criminals was unsuited to his lofty nature. He' pre- 
ferred to go out of life with his mind perfectly un- 
clouded, and to awaic with full consciousness the 
death which he had wished and invoked. He was 
then despoiled of his garments! and fastened to the 
cross. The cross was composed of two beams attached 
in the form of a T.§ It was quite low, so low that the 
feet of the victim almost touched the ground. The 
cross was first set up,T" then the prisoner was fastened 
to it by driving nails through his hands ; the feet were 
often nailed., sometimes merely tied with cords."^* A 
billet of wood, a sort of arm, was fastened to the stem 
of the cross, towards the middle, and passed between 
the legs of the victim, who rested upon it.ff Without 
this the hands would have been torn and the body 
would have sunk down. At other times, a horizontal 

» Talm. of Bab. , Scmhedrin, fol. 43 a. Comp. Prov., xxi, 6. 

f Talm. of Bah ., Sanhedrin, 1. c. 

X Mark, xv, 23. Matt. , xxvii, 34, falsifies this circumstance, in ofder to obtain 
a messianic allusion to Ps., lxix, 22. 

p Matt. , x.Kvii, 35 ; Mark, xv, 24; John, xix, 23. Of. Artemidorus, Oniroer. , ii, 53, 

^ Lucian, JudL voc. , 12. Compare the grotesque crucifix drawn at Rome upon 
a wall of Mount Palatine, Civilta cattoUca, fasc. clxi, p. 529 seqq. 

^ Jos., J3. J., VII, VI, 4; Cic.,/n Fctt., V, 66; Xenoph. B]^he.,Ephesiaca, iy,2. 

**Luke, XXIV, 39; John, xx, 25-27; Plantus, Mostdlaria, II, i, 13; Lucan, Phars. 
VI, 543 seqq. , 6.47 ; Justin, Dial, cum Tryph. , 97 ; Tertullian, Adv. Mardonem, in, 19, 

tt IreiueuB, Adv. hoer.y II, 24, Justin, Dial, cum Tryph. , 91 



LIFE OF JESUS. 347 

tablet was fixed at the hight of the feet and sustained 
them.* 

Jesus tasted these horrors in all their atrocity. A 
burning thirst, one of the tortures of crucifixion, f de- 
voured him. He asked for drink. There was at hand 
a cup of the ordinary drink of the Roman soldiers, a 
mixture of vinegar and water, called jposca. Soldiers 
had to carry \}i\Qvc posca with them in all their expe- 
ditions,:}: among which executions were counted. A 
soldier dipped a sponge in this drink, put it on the end 
of a reed, and bore it to tlie lips of Jesus, who sucked 
it.|| The thieves were crucified on either side. The 
executioners, to whom were ordinarily abandoned the 
minor spoils {pannicularia) of criminals,§ drew lots 
for his garments, and, seated at the foot of the cross, 
guarded him.T According to one tradition, Jesus pro- 
nounced the words, which were in his heart if not up- 
on his lips : " Father, forgive them ; for they know not 
what they do."** 

An inscription, in accordance with the Eoman cus- 
tom, was attached to the top of the cross, bearing in 
three languages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin : the king 
OF THE JEWS, There was in this wording something 
humiliating and opprobrious to the nation. The nu- 
merous passers who read it were shocked by it. The 
priests sent word to Pilate that he ought to adopt a 

* See the graffito previously cited. 

+ See the Arabic text published by Kosegarten, Chrest. arab.. p. 64. 

I Spartianus, Life of Hadrian, 10; Vulcatius Gallieanus, Life of Avidius Cas- 
fliua, 5. 

H Matt.. XXVII, 48; Mark, xv, 86; Luke, xxiii, 36; John, xix, 28-30. 

^ Dig., XL VII, XX, Dehonis damnat. , 6. Hadrian limited this usage. 

\ Matt., XX vn, 36. Cf. Petronius, Satyr., cxi, cxii. 

** Luke, xxin, 34. In general the last words attributed to Jesus, especially as 
Luke reports them, are doubtful. The intention of edification, or of showing 
the accompli.shment of the prophecies, is there evident. In such cases, moreover, 
each understands in his own way. The last words of celebrated victims are al- 
ways understood in two or three completely different ways, by the nearest 
wituesses. 



348 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

wording wMcli would imply only that Jesus had said 
that he was the king of the Jews. But Pilate, already 
disgusted with the case, refused to make any change in 
what was written.* 

His disciples had fled. John nevertheless declares 
that he was present and remained all the while stand- 
ing at the foot of the cross.f We can affirm with 
more certainty that the faithful women of Galilee, who 
had followed Jesus to Jerusalem, and continued to 
serve him, did not abandon him. Mary Cleophas, 
Mary Magdalene, Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Salome, 
and others besides, stood at a distance^ and watched 
him.l If we may believe John,§ Mary, the mother 
of Jesus, was also at the foot of the cross, and Jesus, 
seeing his mother and his beloved disciple together, 
said to him : " Behold thy mother," and to her : " Be- 
hold thy son." But we cannot understand how the 
synoptic evangelists, who mention the other women by 
name, should have omitted her whose presence was so 
striking a fact. Perhaps indeed the extreme elevation 
of the character of Jesus does not render such a per- 
sonal tenderness probable, at the moment when, en- 



* John, XIX, 19-22. + John, xix, 25 seqq. 

t The synoptics agree in placing the faithful group "far" from the cross. 
John says; " by " controlled by his desire to be brought very near to the cross 
of Jesus. 

J Matt, XXVII, 65-56; Mark, xv, 40-41 j Luke, xxiii, 49, 55; xxiv, 10; John, 
XIX, 26. Cf Luke, xXiii, 27-31. 

§ John, XIX, 25 seqq. Luke, always occupying middle ground between the 
two first synoptics and John, gives " all his acquaintance " as present, but at a 
distance (xxiii,49). The expression '^vwO'toi may, it is true, refer to " rela- 
tives."Luke, however, (ii, 44), distinguishes the ^vwtfTWi from the (fvyySvsTg. 
We should add that the best manuscripts have o\ yvitidTol CLuru, and not 
oJ yvuiC^TOi OLVTOV. Inthe-4cfa (i, 14), Mary, the mother of Jesus, is also placed 
in company with the Galilean women. Luke, moreover (ii, 35) , predicts that a 
Bword of grief shall pierce her soul. But we can the less explain why he omits 
her at the cross. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 349 

tirely absorbed in bis work, he no longer existed save 
for humanity.* 

Aside from this little group of women, who from 
afar comforted his eyes, Jesus had before him only the 
spectacle of human debasement or stupidity. The 
passers insulted him. He heard about him vulgar 
raillery, and his death-cries of anguish turned into 
hateful mockeries. " Ah ! behold him, said they, he 
who called himself Son of God ! Let his father come 
now and deliver him, if he will have him." " He 
saved others," it was muttered, " himself he cannot 
save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come 
down from the cross, and we will believe him !" 
" Ah, said a third, thou that destroyest the temple and 
buildest it in three days, save thyself, and come 
down."f Some, partially aware of his apocalyptic 
ideas, thought they heard him call Elias, and said : 
'* Let us see whether Elias will come to take him 
down." It appears that the two thieves crucified 
beside him also reviled him.ij: The sky was dark ;I 
the earth, as in all the environs of Jerusalem, dry and 
melancholy. For a moment, according to some ac 
counts, his heart failed him ; a cloud concealed the 
face of his Father ; he endured an agony of despair, 
a thousand times more excruciating than all his tor- 
tures. He saw nothing but the ingratitude of man ; 

* This is, in my judgment, one of those relations in which the personality of 
John, and his desire to give himself importance, betrays itself. John, after the 
death of Jesus, appears in fact to have received the mother of Jesus, and to have 
adopted her (John, XIX, 27). The great consideration v^hich Mary enjoyed in 
the infant church, caused him doubtless to declare that Jesus, whose favorite 
disciple he desired to be considered, had, at death, commended to him that which 
he held most dear. The presence of this precious charge assured him a sort of 
precedence over the other apostles, and gave high authority to his teaching. 

t Matt. .XXVII, 40 seqq. ; Mark, xv, 29 seqq. 

X Matt. , XXVII. 44; Mark, xv, 32. Luke, following his desire for the conversion 
of sinners, has here modified the tradition. 

B Matt., xxvn, 45; Murk, xv, 33; Luke, xxiii, 44. 



350 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

perhaps ue repented having suffered for a vile race, 
and he cried out : " Mj God, raj God, why hast thou 
forsaken me?" But his divine instinct resumed its 
sway. In proportion as the life of his body was 
extinguished, his soul became serene and gradu- 
ally returned to its celestial source. He regained 
the consciousness of his mission ; he saw in his 
death the salvation of the world ; he lost sight of the 
hideous spectacle exhibited at his feet, and, thoroughly 
made one with his Father, he commenced upon the 
cross the divine life which he was to lead in the heart 
of humanity for infinite ages. 

The peculiar atrocity of crucifixion was that a man 
might live three or four days in this horrible condi- 
tion upon the seat of anguish.* The hemorrhage 
of the hands very soon ceased and was not mor- 
tal Tiie true cause of death was the unnatural po- 
sition of the body, which induced a hideous disturb- 
ance in the circulation, fearful pains in the head 
and heart, and finally rigidity of the limbs. Men 
of strong constitutions died only of hunger.f The 
principal idea of this cruel punishment was not to kill 
the criminal directly by absolute lesions, bur to ex- 
pose the slave, nailed by the hands of which he had not 
known how to make proper use, and let him rot upon the 
tree. The delicate organization of Jesus preserved him 
from this slow agony. Everything leads to the belief 
that the rupture of a blood-vessel produced at the end 
of three hours, immediate death. A few moments be- 
fore he rendered up his soul, his voice was still strong.if 



Petroiiiu3,<Srai.,CXl8eqq.; Origen, In Matt. Comment. Series, 140; the A.rabio 
:t published in Kosegerten, (^. eit., p. 63 aeqq. 
tRusebius, Hist. eccZ., VIII, 8. J Matt., xxvii, 46; Mark, xv, 34. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 361 

Suddenly lie uttered a terrible cry,* in wliicli some 
heard : " O, Father, into thy hands I comraend my 
spirit !" and which others, more attentive to the pro- 
phecies, rendered by these words : " All things are ac- 
complished !" His head fell upon his breast, and he 
expired. 

Repose now in thy glory, noble founder. Thy work 
is finished ; thy divinity is established. Fear no more 
to see the edifice of thy labors fall by any fault. 
Henceforth, beyond the reach of frailty, thou shalt 
witness from the heights of divine peace, the infinite 
results of thy acts. At the price of a few hours of suf- 
fering, which did not even reach thy grand soul, thou 
hast bought the most complete immortality. For 
thousands of years, the world will depend on thee ! 
Banner of our contests, thou shalt be the standard 
about which the hottest battle will be given. A 
thousand times more alive, a thousand times more be- 
loved, since thy death than during thy passage here 
below, thou shalt become the corner-stone of humanity 
so entirely, that to tear thy name from this world 
would be to rend it to its foundations. Between thee 
and God, there will no longer be any distinction. Com- 
plete conqueror of death, take possession of thy king- 
dom, whither shall follow thee, by the royal road which 
thou hast traced, ages of worshippers. 

* Matt., XXVII, 50; Mark, xv, 37; Luke, xxiii, 46; John, xix, 30. 



352 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITT. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



JBSUS AT THE TOMB. 



It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, accord- 
ing to our method of reckoning,* when Jesus expired. 
A Jewish lawf prohibited leaving a dead body sus- 
pended on the cross beyond the evening of the day 
of execution. It is not probable that, in executions 
conducted by the Romans, this command was ob- 
served. But as the next day was the Sabbath, and a 
Sabbath of peculiar solemnity, the Jews expressed to 
the Roman authority:]: the desire that this holy day 
should not be polluted by such a spectacle.] Their 
request was acceded to ; orders were given to hasten 
the death of the three prisoners, and to take them 
down from the cross. The soldiers executed this 
command by applying to the two thieves a second 
punishment, much more speedy than that of the cross, 
the crurifragium^ the breaking of the iegs,§ the ordin- 
ary punishment of slaves and prisoners of war. As to 

* Matt. , xxvii, 46; Mark, xr, 37 ; Luke, xxin, 44. Comp. John, xix, 14. 

•)• Deui.^ XXI, 22-23; Joshua, viii, 29; x, 26 seqq. Cf. Jos., S. J",IV, v, 2; 
Mischna, Sanhedrin, vi, 5. 

t John says " to Pilate"; but this cannot be, for Mark (xv. 44-45) has it that 
Pilate in the evening was yet ignorant of the death of Jesus. 

{Compare Philo, In Flaccum, ^ 10. 
There is no other example or the cruri/ragitm applied alter crucifixiou. But 



LIFE OF JESUS. 353 

Jesns, they found him dead, and did not deem it ne- 
cessary to break his legs. One of them, however, in 
order to remove all uncertainty of the actual death 
of the third victim, and to ascertain whether there 
still remained any spark of life, pierced his side with 
a lance. They thought that they saw blood and water 
flow out, which was regarded as a sign of the cessation 
of life. 

John, who claims that he saw it,* dwells strongly 
upon this circumstance. It is evident clearly that 
doubts arose as to the reality of the death of Je- 
sus. A few hours of suspension upon the cross seemed 
to persons accustomed to see executions altogether in- 
sufficient to produce such a result. Many cases were 
cited of crucified persons who, taken down in time, 
had been restored to life by energetic reraedies.f Ori- 
gen afterwards believed himself compelled to invoke 
the miraculous in order to explain so speedy an end.J 
The same astonishment is found in the narrative of 
Mark.] In reality, the best guarantee which the his- 
torian possesses upon a point of this nature, is the sus- 
picious hatred of the enemies of Jesus. It is doubtful 
whether the Jews were thus early affected by the fear lest 
Jesus should be thought to be raised from the dead : 
but at all events they must have made certain that he 
was actually dead. Whatever may have been at cer- 
tain periods the negligence of the ancients in all that 
pertains to legal verification and the strict conduct of 
affairs, we cannot believe that those who were in- 

often, in order to abridge the tortures of the sufferer, they gave him a finishing 
Btroke. See the passage of Ibn-Hischam, translated in the Zeitschriftfv/r die Kimae 
dei Morgmlandes, I, p 99-100. 

♦ John, XIX, 31-35. + Herodotus, VII, 194; Jos., Vita, 75. 

X In MaUh. Comment, teriea, 140. | Mark, xv, 44-46. 



354 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

terested did not take some precautions in this re 
gard.* 

According to tlie Roman custom, the body of Jesus 
should have remained suspended to become the prey 
of the birds.f According to the Jewish law, taken 
away at night, it should have been carried to the infa- 
mous spot set apart for the sepulture of criminals.:}: 
Had Jesus numbered among his disciples only his 
poor Galileans, timid and without credit, the latter 
rule would have been followed. But we have seen 
that in spite of his limited success at Jerusalem, Jesus 
had gained the sympathy of some persons of consid- 
eration, who were awaiting the kingdom of God, and 
who, without avowing themselves his disciples, felt 
a very deep attachment towards him. One of these 
persons, Joseph of the little village of Arimathea, 
{Ha-ramathaim)\ went at evening and asked the body 
of the procurator.g Joseph was a rich and honorable 
man, a member of the Sanhedrin. The Roman law 
at that time directed, moreover, that the dead body of 
the sufferer should be given to whomsoever claimed 
it.T Pilate, who was ignorant of the circumstance of 
the Grurifragium^ was astonished that Jesus should be 
dead so soon, and sent for the centurion who conduct- 
ed the execution, to know what it meant. After hav- 
ing received the assurances of the centurion, Pilate 
accorded to Joseph the object of his request. The 
body, probably, had already been taken down from 

* The necessities of the Christian argument afterwards led to the exaggeration 
of these precautions, especially when the Jews had adopted the theory that the 
body of Jesus had been stolen. Matt. , xxvii , 62 seqq. ; xxviii ,11 15. 

+ Horace, jE^pMes, I, xvi, 48; Juvenal, XIV, 77; Lucan, VI, 544; Plautus, 
iftlcspJor., II, IV, 19; Artemidorus, Omr., II, 63; Pliny, XXXVI, 24; Plutarch, 
Life of Cleomenes, 39; Petronius, Sat. , cxi-cxii. | Mischna, Sanhedrin, vi, 5. 

Jl Probably identical with the ancient Rama of Samuel, in the tribe of Ephraim. 

§ Matt., XXVII, 57 seqq.; Mark, xv, 42 seqq. ; Luke, xxiii, 50 seqq.; John, xix, 
88 seqq. f Digest, XLVIII, xxiv, De (xtdaveribus pvmiUmvm. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 356 

the cross. It was delivered to Joseph to be dealt with 
as he chose. 

Another secret friend, E'icodemus,* whom we have 
already seen more than once using his influence in fa- 
vor of Jesus, is now met again. He came bringing an 
ample store of the substances necessary for embalm- 
ing. Joseph and Nicodemus buried Jesus according 
to the Jewish custom, that is, by enveloping him in a 
shroud with myrrh and aloes. The Galilean women 
were present,f and doubtless accompanied the scene 
with tears and piercing cries. 

It was late, and all this was done in great haste. 
They had not yet chosen a final resting-place for the 
body. The removal would, moreover, have occupied 
them until a late hour, and necessitated a violation of 
the Sabbath ; now the disciples still conscientiously 
observed the commands of the Jewish law. They de- 
cided therefore in favor of a temporary buriaL:j: There 
was pear by in a garden, a tomb recently cut in the 
rock, which had never been used. It belonged proba- 
bly to some believer.] These sepulchres, when in- 
tended for a single body, were composed of a little 
chamber, in tlie rear of which the place for the body 
was indicated by a trough or couch scooped out in 
the wall and surmounted by an arch.§ As these caves 

* John, XIX, 39 seqq. f Matt., xxvii, 61,- Mark, xv, 47: Luke, xxiir, 56. 

t John, XIX, 41-42. ' 

I A tradition (Matt., xxvii, 60) designates Joseph of Arimathea as the owner 
of the vault. 

§The vault which, in the time of Constantino, was considered the tomb of 
Christ, has this form, as we may conclude from the description of Arculfe (in 
Mabillon, Jcta SS. Ord. S. Bened., sect. Ill, pars II, p. 504) and vague traditions 
which are still found at Jerusalem among the Greek clergy concerning the state of 
the rock now hidden by the edicule of the Holy Sepulchre. But the ind'cea 
which were relied on in Constantine's time for the identification of this tomb 
with that of Christ were of little or no value (see especially Sozomen, H. E., II, 
1)> Even should we admit the position of Golgotha as nearly exact, the Holy 
Sepulchre would still have no serious mark of authenticity. At all events, the 
aspect of the places has been totally changed. 



356 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

were cut in tlie sides of inclined rocks, they were en- 
tered on a level with the ground ; the entrance was 
closed by a stone very difficult to handle. Jesus was 
laid in the vault ; the stone was rolled to the en- 
trance, and they promised themselves to return and 
give him a more complete sepulture. But the morrow 
l)eing a solemn Sabbath, the work was remitted to the 
third day.* 

The women retired, after having carefully noticed 
how the body was laid. They employed the hours of 
the evening which remained in making additional pre- 
parations for embalming. On Saturday all rested.f 

On Sunday morning, the women, Mary Magdalene 
first of all, came very early to the tomb4 The stone 
was rolled away n*om the opening, and the body was 
no longer in the place where they had laid it. At the 
same time, the strangest reports began to spread 
through the Christian community. The cry, " He is 
risen !" ran among the disciples like lightning. Love 
gave it everywhere facile credence. What had taken 
place ? In treating of the history of the apostles it is 
that we shall have to examine this point, and seek the 
origin of the legends relating to the resurrection. 
The life of Jesus, to the historian, ends with his last 
sigh. But so deep was the trace which he had left in 
the hearts of his disciples and of a few devoted wo- 
men, that, for weeks to come, he was to them living 
and consoling. Had his body been taken away,|| or did 
enthusiasm, always credulous, afterwards generate tlie 
mass of accounts by which faith in the resurrection 
was sought to be established ? This, for want of pe- 

* Luke, XXIII, 56. t JJuke, xxiii, 54-56. 

t Matt. , XXVIII, 1; Mark, xvi, 1; Luke, xxiv, 1; John, xx, 1. 
I See Matt., xxYiii, 15^ John, xx, 2. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 357 

remptory evidence, we shall never know. We may 
say, however, that the strong imagmation of Mary 
Magdalene* here enacted a principal part.f Divine 
power of love ! sacred moments in which the passion 
of a hallucinated woman gives to the world a resur- 
rected God! 

* She had been possessed of seven devils (Mark, xvi, 9; Luke, viii, 2). 

t This is specially evident from Mark, xvi, 9 seqq. These verses form a con- 
clusion of the second Gospel, different from the conclusion xvi, 1-8, after which 
many manuscripts stop. In the fourth Gospel (xx, 1-2, 11 seqq. ; 18) Mary Mag- 
dalene is also the sole primitive witness of the resuirectiou. 



368 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTEK XXVII. 



FATE OF THE EKEUIES OF JESUS. 

According to the calculation whicli we adopt, the 
death of Jesus took place in the year 33 of our era.* 
It cannot in any event have been either before the 
year 29, the preaching of John and Jesus having com- 
menced in the year 28, f nor after the year 35, for in 
the year 36, and, it seems, before the Passover, Pilate 
and Caiap has both lost their offices. J The death of 
Jesus appears, moreover, to have had no connection 
with their dismissal. | In his retirement Pilate proba- 
bly never thought for a moment of the forgotten epi- 
sode which was to transmit his ghastly fame to the 
most distant posterity. The successor of Caiaphas, 
was Jonathan, his brother-in-law, a son of that same 
Han an who bad taken the leading part in the prose- 
cution of Jesus. The Sadducee family of Hanan long 
retained the pontificate, and, more powerful than 
ever, unceasingly waged the cruel war against the dis- 
ciples and the family of Jesus, which it had com 

* The year 33 responds to one of the requirements of the problem, namely, 
that the 14th of Nisan was Friday. If we reject the year 33, in order to find a year 
which fills this condition, we must at least go back to the year 29 or forward to 
the year 36. 

+ Luke, III. 1. J Jos., ^ni. , XVIII, iv, 2 and 3. 

(1 The contrary assertion of Tertullian and Eusebius springs from a worthless 
apocrypha, (see Thilo, Cod. apocr., N. T.,-p. 8l3seqq.). The suicide of Pilate 
(Eusebius, H. E.,JI, 7, Cfiron., ad ann. 1 Caii), appears also to come from legen- 
dary sources. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 359 

menced against its founder. Christianity, whicli owed 
to him the crowning act of its foundation, owed to him 
also its first martyrs. Hanan was held to be one of 
the most fortunate men of his century.* The real 
murderer of Jesus ended his life at the hight of honors 
and consideration without having doubted for a mo- 
ment that he had rendered a great service to the na- 
tion. His sons continued to reign about the temple, 
hardly restrained by the pro-consuls,t and many times 
dispensing with their consent in the satisfaction of 
their violent and haughty instincts. 

Antipater and Herodias soon also disappeared from 
the political scene. Herod Agrippa having been ele- 
vated to the dignity of king by Caligula, the jealous 
Herodias swore that she also would be a queen. Con- 
tinually urged by this ambitious woman, who called 
him a coward because he endured a superior in his 
family, Antipater overcame his natural indolence, and 
went to Rome to solicit the title which his nephew had 
just obtained, (A. D. 39.) But the issue was most un- 
fortunate. Accused by Herod Agrippa to the emper- 
or, Antipater was dethroned and dragged out the rem- 
nant of his life in exile, at Lyons and in Spain. He- 
rodias followed him in his disgrace.:]: A hundred 
years at least were yet to pass away before the name 
of their obscure subject, become a God, should reach 
those distant countries to recall upon their tombs the 
murder of John the Baptist. 

As to the wretched Judas of Kerioth, there were 
terrible traditions of his death. It is said that with 
the price of his perfidy he had bought a field in the 

* Jo8., ^n<., XX, IX, 1. t Jo8-> '• c- 

J Job., -Ani., XVIII, vii, 1, 2; B. J., II, ix, 6. 



360 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

environs of Jerusalem. There was indeed to the south 
of Mount Zion, a place called Hakeldama (the field of 
blood.)* It was supposed that this was the property 
purchased by the traitor.f According to one tradition 
he killed himself. According to another, he had a 
fall in his field,:]: in consequence of which his bowels 
gushed out. I According to others he died of a species 
of dropsy, accompanied by disgusting circumstances, 
which were regarded as a chastisement of heaven. § 
The desire to show in the case of Judas the accom- 
plishment of the threats which the Psalmist pronoun- 
ces against the perfidious friend,Tf may have originated 
these legends. It may be that Judas retired upon his 
property at Hakeldama, led a peaceful and obscure 
life, while his former friends were conquering the 
world and spreading the report of his infamy. It 
may also be that the terrible hatred which weighed 
upon his head resulted in acts of violence, in which 
was seen the finger of heaven. 

The great Christian retributions were, however, in 
the remote future. The new sect went for nothing in 
the catastrophe which was soon to befal Judaism. The 
synagogue came to understand only at a much later 
day what it is to which men expose themselves by 
applying the laws of intolerance. The empire was 
certainly still farther from suspecting that its future 

* St. Jerome, De situ et nom. loc. Tiebr., at the word Achddama. Eusebius (ibid.) 
eays to the North. But the Itineraries confirm the reading of St. Jerome. The 
tradition which gives the name of Haceldama to the burial ground at the foot of 
the valley of Hinnom, dates back at least to the time of Constantine. 

t Acts, 1, 18-19. Matthew, or rather his interpolator, has here given a less sat- 
isfactory turn to the tradition, in order to attach to it the circumstance of a 
cemetery for strangers near by. 

t Matt., XXVII, 5. . . T, ,, X 

I Acts, 1. c. ; Papias, in CEcumneus, Enarr in Act. Apost. , II, and m Fr Munter. 
Fragm.Patrum groEC. (Hafniae, 1781), fasc, I, p. 17 seqq.; Theophylactus, in 
Math., XXVII, 5. 

h Papias, in Munter, I. c; Theophylactus, 1. c. 

\ Psalms, XXIX and cix. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 361 

destroyer was born. For nearly three hundred years 
it will continue its course without dreaming that prin- 
ciples are developing by its side which are destined 
completely to transform the world. At once theocra- 
tic and democratic, the idea thrown out by Jesus into 
the world was, with the invasion of the Germans, the 
most active cause of dissolution of the work of the 
Caesars. On the one hand, the light of all men to par- 
ticipate in the kingdom of God was proclaimed. On 
the other, religion was thenceforth separated in prin- 
ciple from the State. The rights of conscience, with- 
drawn from the political law, come to constitute a 
new power, " the spiritual power." This power has 
more than once belied its origin ; for centuries bish- 
ops have been princes and the pope has been a king. 
The professed empire of souls has shown itself repeat- 
edly a frightful tyranny, employing to maintain its 
authority the rack and the stake. But the day will 
come when the separation shall bear its fruits, when 
the realm of the things of the spirit shall cease to be 
called a " power," that it may be called a " liber- 
ty." Born out of the conscience of a man of the peo- 
ple, developed before the people, first loved and ad- 
mired by the people, Christianity was stamped with 
an original character which shall never be effaced. It 
was the first triumph of the Revolution, the victory of 
public opinion, the advent of the simple of heart, the 
inauguration of the beautiful as understood by the 
people. Jesus thus opened in the aristocratic societies 
of antiquity the breach through which all shall pass. 

The civil power, indeed, although not guilty of the 
murder of Jesus, (it only countersigned the sentence, 
and that against its will,) had yet to bear a heavy bur- 

16 



362 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

den of its responsibility. In presiding over the scene 
of Calvary, the state inflicted on itself the most serious 
of blows. A tradition, fall of irreverences of all kinds, 
became prevalent, and made the circuit of the world, 
a tradition in which the constituted authorities act a 
hateful part, where it is the accused who is right, 
where the judges and the officers of the law are 
leagued against the truth. Seditious in the highest 
degree, the history of the Crucifixion, disseminated by 
thousands of popular images, exhibited the Homan 
eagles sanctioning the most iniquitous of punishments, 
soldiers executing it, a prefect ordering it. What a 
blow to all established authorities. They have never 
fairly recovered from it. How is it possible to assume 
with respect to the common people airs of infallibility, 
when there lies upon the conscience the great mistake 
of Gethsemane ?* 

* This popular sentiment was yet alive in Brittany, in the time of my child- 
hood. The gendarme was looked upon there, as the Jew is elsewhere, with a 
sort of pious repulsion; for it was he who arrested Jesus 1 



LIFE OF JESUS. 363 



CHAPTEK XXYIIL 

BSSEITTIAL CHARACTeB OF THE WORK OF JESUS. 

Jestjs, it is seen, never in his action went out of 
the Jewish circle. Although his sympathy for all the 
despised of orthodoxy led him to admit the heathen 
into the kingdom of God, although he had more than 
once resided in a pagan country, and once or twice he 
is found in kindly relations with unbelievers,* it may 
be said that his life was spent entirely in the little 
world, close and narrow as it was, in which he was 
born. The Greek and Roman countries heard nothing 
of him ; his name does not figure in profane authors 
until a hundred years later, and then only indirectly, 
in. connection with seditious movements provoked by 
his doctrine, or with persecutions of which his disci- 
ples were the object.f Within the heart even of Ju- 
daism, Jesus did not make any durable impression. 
Philo, who died about the year 50, has no glimpse of 
him. Josephus, born in the year 37, and writing in 
the last years of the century, mentions his execution 
in a few lines,;]: as an event of secondary importance ; 

* Matt.jVni, 5 seqq.; Luke,vii, 1 seqq.; John, xii, 20 8eqq. Comjp. Jos., Ant. 
XVIII, HI, 3. 

J Tacitus, Arm., XV, 45; Suetonius, Claudius, 25. 
Ant., XVIII, III, 3. This passage has been mutilated by a Christian hand. 



364 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

in the enumeration of the sects of his time he omits 
the Christians.* The Mischna^ again, presents no 
trace of the new school ; the passages of the two Ge- 
maras in which tlie founder of Christianity is named, 
do not carry us back beyond the fourth or fifth centu- 
ry.f The essential work of Jesus was the creation 
around him of a circle of disciples in whom he inspired 
a boundless attachment, and in whose breast he im- 
planted the germ of his doctrine. To have made him- 
self beloved, "so much that after his death they did 
not cease to love him,'' this was the crowning work of 
Jesus, and that Vhich most impressed his cotempora- 
ries.:j: His doctrine was so little dogmatical, that he 
never thought of writing it or having it written. A 
man became his disciple, not by believing this or that, 
but by following him and loving him." A few sen- 
tences treasured up in the memory, and above all, his 
moral type, and the impression which he had pro- 
duced, were all that remained of him. Jesus is not a 
founder of dogmas, a maker of symbols; he is the 
world's initiator into a new spirit. The least Christian 
of men were, on the one hand, the doctors of the 
Greek Church, who from the fourth century involved 
Christianity in a series of puerile metaphysical discus- 
sions, and, on the other hand, the scholastics of the 
Latin middle ages, who attempted to draw from the 
Go§pel the thousands of articles of a colossal " Sum- 
mation." To adhere to Jesus in view of the kingdom 
of God, was what it was originally to be a Christian. 

; * ^n<., XVIII, i; B.J., II, viii; Vita, 2. 

f Talm. of Jerus. , Scmhedrin, xiv, 16; Aboda zara, ii, 2; Schdbbath, xiv, 4; Talm. 
ofBah.jSanliedrin, 43 a, 67 a; Schabbafh, 104 6, 116 h. Comp, Chagiga^ 4 ft; GiUin, 
CVa, 90 a. The two Gemaras borrow most of their notions concerning JesoB 
from burlesque and obscene legends, invented by the adversaries of Christianity , 
and of no historic value. 

X Job., Jnt., XVIII, m, 3. 



LIFE OF JESdS. 365 

Thus we compreliend how, by an exceptional desti- 
ny, pure Christianity still presents itself, at the end 
of eighteen centuries, with the character of a univer- 
sal and eternal religion. It is because in fact the reli- 
gion of Jesus is, in some respects, the final religion. 
The fruit of a perfectly spontaneous movement of 
souls, free at its birth from every dogmatic con- 
straint, having struggled three hundred years for lib- 
erty of conscience, Christianity, in spite of the falls 
which followed, still gathers the fruits of this surpass- 
ing origin. To renew itself, it has only to turn to the 
Gospel. The kingdom of God, as we conceive it, is 
widely different from the supernatural apparition 
which the first Christians expected to see burst forth 
in the clouds. But the sentiment which Jesus intro- 
duced into the world is really ours. His perfect ideal- 
ism is the highest rule of unworldly and virtuous life. 
He has created that heaven of free souls, in which is 
found what we ask in vain on earth, the perfect nobil- 
ity of the children of God, absolute purity, total ab- 
straction from the contamination of the world, that 
freedom, in short, which material society shuts out as 
an impossibility, and which finds all its amplitude on- 
ly in the domain of thought. The great master of 
those who take refuge in this ideal kingdom of God, is 
Jesus still. He first proclaimed the kingliness of the 
spirit ; he first said, at least by his acts : '' My king- 
dom is not of this world." The foundation of the true 
religion is indeed his work. After him, there is no- 
thing more but to develop and fructify. 

" Christianity" has thus become almost synonymous 
with " religion." All that may be done outside of 
this great and good Christian tradition will be ste- 



366 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

rile. Jesus founded religion on humanitj, as Socrates 
founded philosophy, as Aristotle founded science. 
There had been philosophy before Socrates and science 
before Aristotle. Since Socrates and Aristotle, philo- 
sophy and science have made immense progress ; but 
all has been built upon the foundation which they 
laid. And so, before Jesus, religious thought had 
passed through many revolutions ; since Jesus it has 
made great conquests ; nevertheless it has not depart- 
ed, it will not depart from the essential condition 
which Jesus created ; he has fixed for eternity the idea 
of the pure worship. The religion of Jesus, in this 
sense, is not limited. The Church has had its epochs 
and its phases ; it has shut itself up in symbols which 
have had or will have their day: Jesus founded the 
absolute religion, excluding nothing, determining no- 
thing, save its essence. His symbols are not fixed 
dogmas, but images susceptible of indefinite interpret- 
ations. We should seek vainly in the gospel for a 
theological proposition. All the professions of faith 
are disguises of the idea of Jesns, much as the scho- 
lasticism of the middle ages, by proclaiming Aristotle 
the sole master of a perfect science, was false to the 
thought of Aristotle. Aristotle, had he witnessed the 
discussions of the schools, would have repudiated this 
narrow doctrine ; he would have been of the party of 
progressive science against the party of routine, which 
was shielding itself under his authority ; he woul 
have applauded his contradictors. And so, were Je- 
sus to return among us, he would acknowledge as his 
disciples, not those who claim to include him entirely 
in a few phrases of the catechism, but those who labor 
to continue him. The eternal glory, in every order 



LIFE OF JESUS. 367 

of grand achievements, is to have laid the first stone. 
It may be that, in the " Physics" and in the " Meteor- 
ology" of modern times there is found no word of the 
treatises of Aristotle which hear these titles : Aristo- 
tle is none the less the founder of natural science. 
Whatever may he the transformations of dogma, Je- 
sus will remain in religion the creator of its pure sen- 
timent : the Sermon on the Mount will never be sur- 
passed. Ko revolution will lead us not to join in reli- 
gion the grand intellectual and moral line at the head 
of which beams the name of Jesus. In this sense, we 
are Christians, even though we separate upon almost 
all points from the Christian tradition which has pre- 
ceded us. 

And this great foundation was truly the personal 
work of Jesus. To become adored to such a degree, 
he must have been adorable. Love does not exist 
without an object worthy to enkindle it, and did we 
know nothing of Jesus but the passion which he in- 
spired in those around him, we must yet affirm that he 
was great and pure. The faith, the enthusiasm, the 
constancy of the first Christian generation is explained 
only by supposing at the beginning of the whole 
movement a man of colossal proportions. When we 
look upon the marvellous creations of the ages of 
faith, two impressions, equally fatal to good historical 
criticism, arise in the mind. On the one hand, we are 
led to suppose these creations too impersonal; we at 
tribute to a collective action what often has been the 
work of one powerful will, of one superior spirit. On 
the other hand, we refuse to see men like ourselves i;i 
the authors of these extraordinary movements which 
nature conceals in her breast. Our civilizations, gov- 



368 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

erned as they are by a minute policy, can give us no 
idea of the power of man in the ages when the origin- 
ality of each had a freer field for development. Sup- 
pose a solitary dweller in the quarries near oar capi- 
tals, going thence from time to time to the palaces of 
sovereigns, forcing an entrance, and, in an imperious 
tone, announcing to kings the approach of revolutions 
of which he has been the promoter. The idea alone 
makes us smile. Such, nevertheless, was Elijah. Eli- 
jah the Tishbite, in our days, could not pass the gate 
of the Tuileries. The preaching of Jesus and his free- 
dom of action in Galilee are no less entirely beyond 
the social conditions to which we are accustomed. 
Untrammeled by our polite conventionalities, exempt 
from the uniform education which refines us, but 
which diminishes so greatly our individuality, these 
complete souls carry into action a surprising energy. 
They appear to us like the giants of a heroic age, who 
must have been unreal. Entire mistake ! These men 
were our brothers ; they were of our stature ; they felt 
and thought as we do. But the breath of God was 
free with them ; with us it is enchained by the iron 
bands of a society mean and condemned to an irre- 
mediable mediocrity. 

Let us then place the person of Jesns on the highest 
summit of human grandeur. Let us not permit our- 
selves to be led astray by exaggerated distrust in re- 
gard to a legend which continually draws us into the 
supernatural world. The life of a Francis d'Assisi is 
also only a tissue of miracle. Still has anybody ever 
doubted the existence and the character of Francis 
d'Assisi ? Let us say no more that the glory of the 
foundation of Christianity should be given to the mass 



LIFE OF JESUS. 369 

of primitive CIiristiaDS, and not to him whom the le- 
gend has deified. The inequality of men is even more 
marked in the East than among us. It is not rare to 
see rising there, in the midst of an atmosphere of gen- 
eral wickedness, characters whose grandeur astonishes 
us. Far from having been created by his disciples,. 
^Jesns appears in all things superior to his disciples. 
They, St. Paul and St. John excepted, were men with- 
out talent or genius. St. Paul himself bears no com- 
parison with Jesus, and as to St. John, I shall show 
hereafter that his character, very high in one sense, 
was far from being in all respects irreproachable. 
Hence the immense superiority of the Gospels among 
the writings of the Kew Testament. Hence the pain- 
ful fall which we experience in passing from the hisio- 
ry of Jesus to that of the Apostles. The evangelists 
themselves, who have bequeathed to us the image of 
Jesus, are so far below him of whom they speak, thr.t 
they constantly disfigure him because they cannot at- 
tain his hight. Their writings are full of mistakes and 
misconceptions. At every line we recognise discourse 
of a divine beauty reported by writers who do not 
understand it, and who substitute their own ideas for 
those which they but half comprehend. Upon the 
whole, the character of Jesus, far from having been 
embellished by his biographers, has been belittled by 
them. Criticism, to discover what he really was, 
must eliminate a series of mistakes, arising from the 
mdifterent understanding of the disciples. They have 
painted him as they conceived him, and often, while 
thinking to make him greater, have in reality made 
him less. 

1 know that our modern ideas are wounded more 



870 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

than once in this tradition conceived by another race 
under another sky, in the midst of other social needs. 
There are virtues which, in some respects, are more 
in accordance with our taste. The noble and gentle 
Marcus Aurelius, the humble and mild Spinoza, not 
])elieving in miracles, were exempt from some errors 
in which Jesus shared. The second, in his profound 
obscurity had an advantage which Jesus did not seek. 
By our extreme scrupulousness in the employment of 
the means of conviction, by our absolute sincerity and 
our disinterested love of the pure idea, we all, who have 
devoted our lives to science, have founded a new ideal 
of morality. But the appreciations of universal histo- 
ry should not be confined to considerations of person- 
al merit. Marcus Aurelius and his noble masters have 
had no lasting effect upon the world. Marcus Aure- 
lius left behind him delightful books, an execrable son, 
a transitory world. Jesus remains to humanity an in- 
exhaustible source of moral regenerations. Philoso- 
phy is not enough for the mass. It requires sanctity. 
An Apollonius of Tyana, with his miraculous le- 
gend, was to have greater success than a Socrates 
with his cold reason. " Socrates, it was said, leaves 
men upon the earth, Apollonius transports them to 
heaven ; Socrates is but a sage, Apollonius is a 
God."* Religion, even to our days, has never existed 
without some portion of asceticism, of sanctity, of the 
marvellous. Were it desired, like the Antonines, to 
make a religion of philosophy, it would have been ne- 
cessary to transform the philosophers into saints, to 
write the "edifying Life" of Pythagorasand of Plotinus, 

♦ Philostratus, lAfeofApoUonitis, IV, 2; VII, 11; VIII, 7; Eunapius, Lives of the 
Sophists, p. 464, 500 (edit. Didot). 



LIFE OF JESUS. 371 

to attribute to them a legend, virtues of abstinence and 
contemplation, supernatural powers without which 
neither credence nor authority was found with the 
age. 

Let us guard, therefore, against mutilating history 
to satisfy our poor susceptibilities. Who of us, pig- 
mies that we are, is able to do what the extravagant 
Francis d'Assisi, or the hysterical St. Theresa have 
done ? Though medicine have names to express these 
great aberrations of human nature ; though it main- 
tain that genius be a disease of the brain ; though it 
see in a certain delicacy of morality the commence- 
ment of phthisis ; though it class enthusiasm and love 
among nervous symptoms, what matters that ? The 
words of sick and well are altogether relative. Who 
would not rather be sick like Pascal than in good 
health like the multitude ?/ The narrow ideas which 
are general in our day in regard to madness, mislead 
our historical judgment most seriously in questions of 
this kind. A condition in which a man says things 
of which he has no conscious knowledge, in which 
thought is produced without being called and regulat- 
ed by the will, now exposes him to be shut up as a 
lunatic. Formerly, this was called prophecy and in- 
spiration. The finest things in the world are done in 
a state of fever ; every eminent creation involves a 
destruction of equilibrium, a violent condition for the 
being who produces it. 

Certainly, we acknowledge that Christianity is a 
work too complex to have been the creation of a sin- 
gle man. In one -sense, all humanity worked together 
upon it. There is no portion of the world so walled in 
that it does not receive some breath from without. 



372 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

The history of the human mind is full of strange syn- 
chronisms by which far distant fragments of the hu- 
man race attain at the same time, without intercom- 
munication, to ideas and imaginations almost identical. 
In the thirteenth century, Latins, Greeks, Syrians, 
Jews and Mussulmen affect scholasticism and almost 
the same scholasticism, from York to Samarkand ; in 
the fourteenth century, the taste for mystical allegory 
becomes universal in Italy, in Persia, in India ; in the 
sixteenth century, art is developed in an entirely simi- 
lar manner, in Italy, at Mount Athos, at the court of 
the Great Mogul, yet there had been no acquaintance 
between St. Thomas, Barhebrseus, the doctors of Nar- 
bonne, and the motecallemin of Bagdad : Dante and 
Petrarch had seen no sonfi, no pupil from the schools 
of Perouse or Florence had visited Delhi. One would 
say that great moral influences sweep over the world 
like epidemics, without distinction of frontier or of na- 
tion. The commerce of ideas in the human race does 
not work by books or by direct teaching only. Jesus 
did not even know the name of Buddha, Zoroaster, or 
Plato ; he had read no Greek book, no Buddhist sou- 
tra, and yet there is in him more than one element 
which, without his knowledge, came from Buddhism, 
from Parseeism, or from the wisdom of the Greeks. 
All this is done through secret channels and by that 
species of sympathy which exists between various di- 
visions of humanity. The great man, on the one hand, 
receives all things from his time ; on the other, he 
masters his time. To show that the religion founded 
by Jesus was the natural consequence of what had 
preceded, is not to diminish its excellence ; it is to 
prove that there was a reason for its existence, that it 



LIFE OF JESUS. 373 

was natural, that is to say, conformable to the in- 
stincts and to the needs of the heart in a given 
age. 

Is it more just to say that Jesus owed all to Juda- 
ism, and that his grandeur is none other than that of 
the Jewish people ? No person is more disposed than 
I to give a lofty place to this unique people, whose 
peculiar province it seems to have been to compass 
the extremes of good ajid evil. Undoubtedly Jesus 
emanates from Judaism ; but he emanates from it as 
Socrates emanated from the schools of the Sophists, as 
Luther emanated from the Middle Ages, like Lamen- 
nais from Catholicism, like Eousseau from the eight- 
eenth century. \J A man belongs to his age and his race, 
even when he reacts against his age and his race./ Far 
from being the continuator of Judaism, Jesus repre- 
sents the breaking off with the Jewish spirit. Even 
supposing that his thought in this regard may leave 
room for some uncertainty, the general direction of 
Christianity after him permits none. The general 
progress of Christianity has been to separate more 
and more from Judaism. Irs perfection will be in re- 
turning to Jesus, but certainly not in returning to Ju- 
daism. The great originality of the founder, there- 
fore, remains complete ; his glory admits no rightful 
sharer. 

Undoubtedly circumstances counted much in the 
success of this revolution ; but circumstances only 
second that which is just and true. Each branch of 
the development of humanity has its privileged epoch, 
in which it attains perfection by a sort of spontaneous 
instinct and without effort. No labor of reflection 
succeeds in producing immediately those master-pieces 



374 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

wliicli nature creates at such moments, through the 
inspiration of genius. What the beautiful ages of 
Greece were to the arts and profane literature, the age 
of Jesus was to religion. Jewish society presented 
the most extraordinary intellectual and moral condition 
through which the human species has ever passed. 
It was truly one of those divine hours when the grand 
is produced by the collaboration of a thousand con- 
cealed forces, when beautiful souls find to sustain them 
a tide of admiration and of sympathy. The world, 
freed from the petty tyranny of little municipal repub- 
lics, enjoyed great liberty. Roman despotism did not 
make itself felt until much later, and, besides, it was 
always less burdensome in these distant provinces 
than at the centre of the empire. Our petty preven- 
tive annoyances (far more murderous than death to the 
things of the spirit) did not exist. Jesus, for three years, 
was able to lead a life which, in our state of society, 
would have brought him twenty times before the police 
courtB. Our laws concerning the illegal practice of 
medicine alone, would have sufficed to cut short his 
career. Tlie incredulous dynasty of the Herods, more- 
over concerned itself little with religious movements ; 
under the Asmoneans, Jesus would probably have 
been arrested at his first step. An innovator, in such 
a state of society, incurred no danger but that of 
death, and for those who labor for the future, death is 
kind. Imagine Jesus required to bear until sixty or 
seventy years old the burden of his divinity, losing his 
celestial flame, wearing out little by little under the 
necessities of an unparallelled position ! All things 
favor those who are signally marked ; they go into 
glory by the sweep of an irresistible and fatal tide. 



LIFE OF JESUS. 375 

This sublime person, who each day still presides 
over the destinies of the world, we may call divine, 
not in the sense that Jesus absorbed all divinity, or 
was equal to it (to employ the scholastic expression), 
but in this sense that Jesus is that individual who has 
caused his species to make the greatest advance to- 
wards the divine. Humanity as a whole presents an 
assemblage of beings, low, selfish, superior to the ani- 
mal only in this that their selfishness is more premed- 
itated. But in the midst of this uniform vulgarity, 
pillars rise towards heaven and attest a more noble 
destiny. Jesus is the highest of these pillars which 
show to man whence he came and whither he should 
tend. In him is condensed all that is good and lofty 
in our nature. He was not sinless ; he conquered the 
same passions which we combat ; no angel of God 
comforted him, save his good conscience ; no Satan 
tempted him, save that which each bears in his heart. 
And. as many of the grand aspects of his character are 
lost to us by the fault of his disciples, it is probable 
also that many of his faults have been dissembled. But 
never has any man made the interests of humanity 
predominate in his life over the littleness of self-love 
so much as he. Devoted without reserve to his idea, 
he subordinated everything to it to such a degree that 
towards the end of his life, the universe no longer ex- 
isted for him. It was by this flood of heroic will that 
he conquered heaven. There never was a man, 
Sakya-Mouni perhaps excepted, who so completely 
trampled under foot family, the joys of the world, and 
all temporal cares. He lived only for his Father, and 
for the divine mission which he believed it was his to 
fulfil. 



376 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

As for lis, eternal children, condemned to weakness, 
we who labor without harvesting, and shall never see 
the fruit of what we have sown, let us bow before 
thesedemi-gods. Thej knew what we do not know : 
to create, to affirm, to act. Shall originality be born 
anew, or shall the world henceforth be content to fol 
low the paths opened by the the bold creators of the 
ancient ages? We know not. But whatever may 
be the surprises of the future, Jesus will never be sur- 
passed. His worship will grow young without ceas- 
ing ; his legend will call forth tears without end ; his 
sufferings will melt the noblest hearts; all ages will 
proclaim that among the sons of men there is none 
born greater than Jesus. 



END OF THE LIFE OF JESUS. 




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